


Beyond Reality

by pseudocsalt



Category: Beyond Reality (TV), Mental Reality - Connor Birmingham
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Victorian, Constructed Reality, Dark, Dream Sex, Dreams vs. Reality, Fantasy, Gothic, Other, Victorian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:06:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27410164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudocsalt/pseuds/pseudocsalt
Summary: After Delia is shot from her ex abusive boyfriend on the day of her wedding, she falls into a coma. Because of how prolonged the coma is, Delia begins to create a world of her own inside her dreams where she exists and is alive. It's an alternate reality where she can feel, hear, but not see her husband. In this realm, she experiences a life beyond physics and sensibility.





	1. A Land propped on Clouds

Delia began with a single step forward down an aisle formed at the Chicago Cultural Center’s Preston Bradley Hall. In her right arm, she had her grandfather’s arm looped, and in front of her, her grandmother sat in a wheelchair. She was pushing her grandmother, so she could have both of her grandparents walking her down the aisle. This was the day that Delia would be wedded to her partner, Jack.  
For every moment she took to glance up at him from the chair, he smiled at her.  
He felt so lucky.  
The room was silent.  
The minute she reached the row in front of the altar, an orchestra began to cover Coldplay’s, “Yellow” song.  
She was helping her grandfather pull up her grandmother off her wheelchair and on to one of the hall’s velvet chairs.  
The orchestra strum along her movements, and she smiled.  
Delia kissed her grandfather as he settled into his chair, and she paced down the row, headed towards the last remaining steps down the aisle.  
She stood momentarily staring at Jack and smiled.  
In that instant, a swivel sound followed a bullet.  
The minute the silent bullet reached Delia’s back, her smile upturned. Her face held a stunned expression, and in the following silence, she gasped.  
There was a white noise that rang in her ears, and everyone in the room saw her stunned still.  
She looked down at her foot. She wanted to peel it off the ground, but she couldn’t help shifting her gaze down at her stomach.  
From her stomach, she gazed up at her lover.  
Everyone in the room watched her struggle to stay upright. He watched her struggle to continue. She didn’t want to stop trying, but her body failed her.  
Her eyes had stretched out, glistened, but without the ability to say what she was about to say to him, she let out another gasp that made her collapse.  
The blood had surfaced as her skin touched the floor.  
He watched her. It was still so quiet with white noise, as everyone in the room could not process.  
The gunshot was loud, but before anyone took the time to do anything, they watched her slowly fall to the ground. The sight of her blood broke their pause.  
The front row, who had been her mother, father, brother, aunts, and uncles,  
they got up.  
Along with the friends of the groom. They all stood up. Her family ran to her, and the friends, turned to see who had struck her. The moment they stood up and turned their heads to the one who fired, the hairs of the perpetrator stood up, making him unable to move. All of his friends ran to him. They discovered it was her ex- abusive lover.  
They lunged to him, striking him in the face, and smacked the gun out of his hand, while another called the police and the ambulance.

Her grandmother was watching her granddaughter die, so she wept, quietly. She let her tears trickle down, and he saw Delia watch her grandmother cry. He finally shifted from the altar to the ground, picking her up.  
He placed her upper body in his arms, cradling her, shivering, rocking, and whispering to her,  
“You’re going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.”  
Her mother was holding her hand.  
“She’s going to be okay,” he smiled, softly, looking up at her grandmother. Delia watched her grandmother to see how she'd react, and her grandmother nodded, as her aunt wiped away the tears from her grandmother's face.  
He was shivering, holding her. “Everything’s going to be okay, Delia.” Another whisper, and he had watched her blinks lessen, when she shifted her gaze back to him. She stopped moving and started turning cold. He started to shake, and his eyes started to glisten, and the blood had trailed all around him.  
He couldn’t hold composure, not for her grandmother anymore, because he felt the cold reach his arms. He wrapped himself around her to contain warmth. While he was shaking, shivering, he helplessly wrapped her dress around her, pulling off his jacket, wrapping it around her. He was whispering, almost in a verse, “you’re going to be okay”  
“Delia?”  
He was trying to hold on to her gaze, but she was stuck in a gaze at the altar.  
“You don’t have to say anything, Delia. Just keep your eyes on me, please?”  
He whispered into her ear, “Please?”  
“Delia,” he placed his forehead on her, looking at her, his tears trickled down.  
When the sirens reached the church, he picked her up, held her close, gently walked with her body. Her dress had swayed passed her parents, grandparents, friends, and in laws.  
The trail of blood reached the steps outside to the ambulance. Everyone watched him carry her. Paramedics stood by with a gurney. He felt himself numb on the face, hazily moving forward.  
Meanwhile, his friends pulled the shooter away to the second siren.  
When he placed her on the gurney, her mother went in, and he closed the doors.  
He watched the ambulance move.  
His friends tightened their grip on the shooter.  
Then he looked towards the shooter.  
He met eyes with the shooter.  
And the tears stopped surfacing.  
He kept eye contact with him.  
Everyone that was sitting alongside the benches of the aisle were outside, watching.  
He began to react, furrowing his brows,  
He jolted forward, lifting his fist, as they held the shooter tighter, the shooter flinched down.  
Striking down, and purposely…  
Missed.  
Everyone had watched him.  
While, the shooter opened his eyes slowly.  
He wanted to strike him in the face, but he couldn’t.  
He whispered to himself, “Delia...”  
Jack collapsed alongside them.  
They watched his best friend fall on his knees, weak. The police watched him fall, and slowly walked up to the friends, taking away the shooter.  
Reciting his rights, they haphazardly cuffed the shooter.  
They said to Jack, “We’re praying she’s going to be okay,” while shoving the shooter in the back of the car.  
The shooter had been like a ghost, almost as pale as the groom. He was unable to move, realizing what he had just done when he looked at her grandmother.  
His friends stood by him, and one of them was hugging him, “What can we do for you?”  
He looked up at him, “Please, take me to the hospital. I need to be with her too,” as he wiped away the blood on his hands.  
“Of course! Let’s go,”  
The chauffeur pulled up with his friend’s car.  
But before he went in, he ran up to her grandmother, “Do you want to come with me?” he waited for her nod.  
After she slowly nodded,  
“Help me get her in the car too. Along with her grandfather.”  
When they arrived at the hospital, he found her mother sitting down, beside her where she lied on the hospital bed hooked up to an ivy of fluids and another of blood. Her mother was weeping with her dad. Her mother was holding the bride’s hand while her dad was wiping away her mother’s tears. He slowly pulled her into his chest. He pulled her under his chin and looked over at his daughter, and he began to cry too. “It’s going to take time, but we’re going to get through this. She’s just going to be sleeping. She’s still breathing. At least, she is still breathing.”  
His voice was hoarse, but the groom heard, and he stood at the entrance.  
“What do you mean?”  
He asked, trembling.  
They turned over and saw that he was there, still covered in her blood, her mother began to tear up, again.  
Her dad hugged her, again, and got up from his chair.  
His friends were on their way up with her grandparents, so he was the only one in the room.  
Her dad swallowed back the knot in his throat, took a breath, and shifted his eyes, reluctant to make eye contact.  
“They took the bullet out of her. It was stuck in one of her ribs, and they had to remove it, because, as they told us,  
He didn’t just shoot her with a bullet. He shot her with thallium.”  
Before her dad continued, the groom tightened his fist.  
“Because it was stuck in her rib, it didn’t spread, but they’re going to continue to check on her blood and take x-rays. While, right now..”  
His eyes trailed back to her. “She’s not going to be waking up,”  
He looked at her dad, then at her mum, “Is she breathing?”  
Her mother got up, “Yes, she’s breathing, but with help. It’s going to take time for her body to heal. They performed CPR, and her heart started beating..”  
She wiped away her tears, grabbed the groom’s hand and walked him to his bride. “Sit down, honey. I know you love my daughter, and I know this is a difficult situation. Her dad and I are going to be taking care of her..” Before she could go any further, his brows furrowed, and he answered, “No you’re not. You saw her grandparents walk her down the aisle. That’s enough for me to know, that I am the one that’s supposed to be taking care of her now” It was a stern reply, but he relaxed when he saw her face, and continued to caress his thumb on her hand, shifting his gaze down at the floor, saying, “Just let me..”  
She patted his hand, picked herself off the chair and as she walked up to her dad’s arms, she nodded to him silently. Tearing, before she went into his chest.  
Her grandmother and grandfather came in to see him there with her hand. His elbows on his knees, scruffing his head.  
When grandma heard the details of her recovery, she said she wanted to visit twice a week.  
One at the beginning of the week and at the end.

...

It was the third week that Delia stayed in the hospital, and he hadn’t left. He stayed in the hospital, still in the same clothing, waiting for her to wake up. Before her grandmother left, on the night of the accident, he told her, “I’m staying here. I’m not leaving. I promise I’ll be here until she wakes up.”  
Revisiting that moment in his mind, he was sitting on the same chair, watching her in the hospital clothes, and looked at the dress on the side of her bed. It was the third week, and he was still wearing the same clothes on the night of the accident.  
“Jack, I brought you some clothes,” it was his mother’s voice coming from the doorway of her room.  
He kept his gaze on her dress, but his eyes felt heavy, hearing his mother’s voice. He didn’t have to turn back. He knew it was her.  
“I’m surprised you’re here.”  
His mother was sullen by his response, so she sighed, and walked in, feeling unwelcome. Pacing towards him, she placed her hand on his shoulder, “Everyone knows you love her,” she picked up her head to look at his bride, “I know it, too...I know it, now.”  
His eyes began to quiver, and he was feeling the rush fill his eyes, and with a swallow to keep from the knot surfacing, “I’m glad you showed up at our wedding. I’m glad you and dad were there, mum.”  
He nodded his head and dropped it into his hands, “But it took you a day of her getting shot in the ribs, nearly bleeding to death...to see me in pain..”  
He turned around in his chair, and with his swivel, he pushed her hand off his shoulder, looking directly into her, while his ducts filled to the brim, “Why did you have to see me in that much agony to know that I love her?”  
She looked at her son’s hazel eyes. She picked up her right hand. He looked at the protruding veins on her hand, along with the long, black, sharp nails. Her hand was shaking when she brushed his golden brown, long hair behind his ear. The wrinkles on the creases of her mouth were quivering, and she looked like the glisten in her eyes exposed a weakness, other than her deteriorating body. He felt sorry. He let her curl his hair behind his ear and pat him on the head, and she placed the clothes she had on her left hand on the chair beside him. She silently turned away, pacing out the door.  
“Mum, wait.” He was standing right behind her, and when she turned, he went into her arms and started to cry. “I promised her grandmother I wouldn’t leave until she woke up, and I’m swearing myself to it. I don’t want her to wake up remembering that the last time she saw a person, he was standing on the altar, waiting for her.”  
He let out gasps, tears sliding down his face, but never letting out a whimper.  
She patted his head, “Don’t stay here. You don’t know how long she’s going to be asleep.”  
He stopped crying, froze in her arms, looked down at the marble, white floor, took a breath, and got out of her embrace, “You let me believe that you hear me, sometimes..”  
He didn’t look at her and turned away, back into the chair,  
“Jack, I just want you to live, too”  
He placed his arms folded on her bedside and looked at his bride, “I am living.”  
I’m breathing, walking, eating,”  
“Jack, please. I just want you to take care of yourself too,” She walked back to the bedside and pointed to his clothes, “You’re still wearing the clothes that are covered in her blood.”  
He didn’t turn his gaze from Delia, “Thank you for bringing me a new pair.”  
She sat on the bed, shifting Delia’s legs.  
“Watch yourself!” he jolted up, fixing her legs. His mother was taken aback, moving forward to the edge of the bed, “This is not healthy, Jack. You have to get out of here. Get some air, do something besides sit here, and wait.”  
He shook the strain from his eyes, and relaxed his face, “I know what you’re asking me to do, mum. I know,”  
He lifted Delia’s sheets. Beside her iv, he took a cloth from a bowl of soapy water that was sitting on a brown, coffee table.  
“I am doing something,” he traced his fingers over her nose, to feel her air coming from her nose, and he began to gently, slowly wipe her face, down to her elbows, around her chest, around her neck, and down her legs. He lifted her calves, bending her knees, stretching her body, one by one.  
“The nurses could do these things,” she sighed. He patted her right leg that was beside his mother down,  
“But it wouldn’t be the quality that your son can give to his wife,” he smiled and looked in her direction.  
His mother’s face was sullen. She didn’t lift a quiver on her face for a smile. “What about your friends? What about your job?”  
He went back into the chair beside the coffee table and strained the cloth.  
He was sitting next to his mother, not facing her, he replied, “They’re coming to visit me in two days. I asked them to give me some time.”  
She started shaking her head, “for what, son? You have to write, edit, and publish. You and your friends have built a company, and it takes every day to keep it afloat. You know that, especially by how your father has taken care of his business, doing the same thing.”  
Straining the last drop from the cloth, “Those are the benefits one can get as a writer, editor, and publisher. Luckily for me, I can work here, and also keep my eye on her,” he looked up at her face. His bride was pale, her brown hair was loose from the ornament that was wrapped around the sides of her ears. Loose white tassels dangled close to her ears, and he looked over the brown beauty marks that were on her cheeks.  
“She is a beautiful girl, Jack. I just want what’s best for you. Not for you to torment yourself by locking yourself up in this room”  
He dropped the cloth back in the bowl and let it splash over, “She’s not just some girl! She was at the altar! You saw her, standing there..” his voice sounded hoarse at the end of his reply.  
He got up from the accent chair, pushing it away, gasping, “I watched her. She was putting her foot forward on the stair. She wanted to be by my side! She wanted to make it up those stairs and be with me, and I watched her struggle to place her foot,”  
He started to bounce in place, to keep from falling apart, again, “I watched her look at me, feeling sorry that she couldn’t move. She was going to cry because she couldn’t move,”  
He paced around the bed and graved on the rails at the end of the bed, letting his head fall heavy, “I watched her as he put his bullet in her. I watched her fall, bleed, and worry over her grandmother..”  
Trailing off, he looked at his mother, “Her grandmother nearly watched her die.  
I almost saw her die, mum” he was tightening his grips on the rail, pushing himself off, and placing his head on his mother’s lap, “Please, understand, mother.”  
She began to shag his hair, running her sharp nails through the golden waves, and on her lap, he turned his head towards the bed,  
“Please support me, in this. I need as much help as I can get being here, for her,”  
Lifting her finger, and letting one strand fall,  
“But you’re not married.”  
The air in the room paused, and the subtle noises outside the room had lowered to nothing. He took in his breath, shoved her seat away,  
“I don’t know how you have the will to say something like that, after everything I have confided in to you. After everything. You’re heartless.  
Get the fuck out.”  
He picked her up from the chair, pulled her up by her arms, and started to push her, “Get the fuck out. Get the fuck out,” and with one last shove through the doorway, “GET THE FUCK OUT”  
He gasped, looking at his mother, on the other side. Waiting for a response, he stood there, keeping his eyes to hers. He was hyperventilating from the pants of anger he let out. His eyebrows quivered, waiting expectantly, for her to come back, to apologize, to support him with his wife.  
His mother just stood there, for 10 minutes, staring back, contemplating.  
When he saw her straighten her posture, he knew.  
He relaxed his face, down to a solemn. He shook his head, turned away, and shut the door.

...

“Why would you do that to your mother, Jack?”  
It was Erik, one of Jack’s best friends. He sat down on the accent chair, next to the coffee table. Jack was in the middle of combing Delia’s hair, stopping at a knot.  
“She’s my wife, Erik. After he shot her, after I carried her to the gurney. Everyone witnessed it.”  
“I know, Jack. I hugged you, twice that day. You were really hurt that day. I’ve never seen you like that. I don’t think anyone has ever seen you in that state,”  
Erik went on the swivel chair, next to the desktop he and his friends set up.  
“I know you’re married to her,” Erik smiled and looked up at Jack.  
Jack dropped her hair loose, and let her sit up against the wall. He sat next to her, letting her head settle on his shoulder, “It’s not legal.”  
Erik stopped from swiveling his chair, darted his eyes to Jack, “Don’t do that to yourself.”  
Jack dropped his lids, slowly rolling his eyes, “Her words are in here,” he directed his finger to his head.  
Erik nodded and went back to swiveling in his chair, “What about the story?”  
Jack smiled. He knew this was Erik’s way of redirecting his focus, his thoughts.  
“You ask all the right questions,” he scoffed.  
Erik pushed himself away from the desk, down to the bed, “What do you think she dreams about?,” he was slouched over in the chair, covering his face with his left arm, and pointed at her with his right. Jack was shocked at the thought, leaving his mouth agape. “You know,” he turned his head to her, “I forgot she’s still awake in her mind…”

...

A land is propped up on four clouds, at the highest altitude of Earth, near the Thermosphere.  
The grass set out this land as a field like an entrance into a forest. Along this trail, led to an ocean with no ground, splashing around, thunderously. Hitting the planks that held up a glass mansion, droplets land on a staircase that swirled around its planks. Following the stairs, the monumental red doors flapped open, where the wind curled in. Antique, Victorian art was everywhere, along velvet maroon walls and bright, giant chandeliers. The droplets cascaded down the chandeliers, shadowing over its enormous first floor ballroom hall. The floor’s marble had a circular, curving black monogram, circling over a heart shape. More stairs, to the second floor. The stairs in the ballroom were red, velvet, and the rails where glass, black swirls. Up these stairs, Delia sat on a chair that was like a throne. Both of her hands planted on the golden arms. She was at the end of a long dining table, which was covered with fruits, tarts, pastries, jellies, and tea. There were a dozen silverware plates, utensils, and cups. All the chairs that were silver were empty, but Delia was sitting on her golden throne. Her long, brown hair wrapped around the chair twice, once over it, and once around it’s waist. She was wearing a crown, and a gown. The gown was loose, threaded with silk and bright yellow. She had cuffs, and she was covered in gold dust. As though she had been sitting like a statue in her seat for years.  
She blinked open her eyes.  
Feeling stiff, she tempted to pick up her right hand, but it was glued to the armrest. She tempted to pick up her left hand, but this one was also stuck. After tempting to maneuver her every limb, she gave in to the fact that she had to pry her right hand loose, somehow.  
She darted her wide open eyes down to look at her right hand, trying to see if she could even lift her finger to scrape off the glue that kept her hand. She began to scrape her nail around her finger, releasing from the glue. She lifted it, pointing out, she bent it enough to scrape around the second, the third, the fourth, and finally the fifth. Until finally, she released her palm.  
Jack was near the hospital bed, laying down next to Delia’s sleeping body. Her right hand twitched next to him. He was fast asleep, but moved slightly when he felt her hand twitch.  
She was still sitting in her throne, finally after releasing her right hand, she started to scrape off the left one with all her fingers around and under the glue. She pulled her index finger out of the webbed glue. Her left hand shifted, slightly. Jack felt her hand this time, quickly, forcefully, rising from his slumber with a gasp, he jumped out of bed to look at her, to see if her body would move again.  
“Delia?”  
He was standing next to the bed, fixing her blankets. They had been disheveled from his body.  
Finally freeing her arms, she looked around the dining table and golden chair to check if there was a tool she could use to scrape off the web.  
She found there was a staff inserted in the side of the chair, and she quickly grabbed it, scraped off the remaining on her torso, around her shoulders, and carefully, around her neck.  
Releasing from the glue-like web, she pulled herself forward at the edge of the chair, where her hair fell around her shoulders, down her exposed back.  
With the release of her torso, her body on the hospital bed, shifted again.  
Jack’s corners of his mouth started to shoot up, and he began to pace in excitement, running out the room to grab a nurse.  
When he came back with a nurse, he shouted in excitement, “Her body is moving!”  
Holding up his hand, “Just wait for it. Watch! She’s going to twitch or shift, again!”

Her brown hair was loose around the chair’s arms. When she scraped off the web from her calves, she immediately kicked forward, ripping the rest of the web off. Her leg pulsed up on the hospital bed, and the nurse witnessed.  
“Wow. She’s waking up. Let me get the on-call doctor,” he rushed out of the room and started to page.  
Jack quickly bent over the bed, carefully positioning her head over his lap, under his hands, caressing her hair, whispering, “Wake up, Delia..I’m waiting for you,”

The whisper reached into the dining room, along with the swiveling wind, the giant red doors smacked open, and the rush of the wind reached her ears, over and around her lobes, she heard his whisper, and she gasped, wide eyed, looked around the room, started to shout, “Who’s there?!”

Her eyebrows curved in Jack’s lap.  
Both of her legs were released, and she finally was able to place her hands on the arms of the chair to push herself off of the chair, picking up all of her weight. The dress slipped around the edges of the chair, along with her hair, and the web fell off.  
She picked up her dress, confused by her attire, but accepting it.  
She tiptoed on the small heels of her gold shoes. “Where are you?!?! Whoever you are!”

When the doctor walked in, she saw Delia’s eyebrows, and her tightened knuckles, she told the nurse to bring up a gurney. She was going to perform a ct scan. 

Delia looked around the room, saw all the food on the table, and started to run down the velvet stairs into the ballroom. Her dress cascaded down each one.

“Where are you?!”  
Shouting at the top.

The Doctor and nurse both placed her body on the gurney. Jack followed.  
As she was being put through the tunnel, analyzing her brain,  
The doctor who was in the department, started to analyze the color coded structure. Jack was watching Delia slowly being pushed into the tunnel, having the circle rotate around her head, he started to panic.  
Something was wrong.

“It’s rare, but the Thallium has almost paralyzed her.”  
The doctor sitting across the screen of the ct scan, turned around; while two nurses picked up Delia from the bed of the scan.  
“She’s awake, but she’s trapped in her own body. She must be experiencing the first signs of consciousness, but she’s stuck. There’s not a lot that can be done to have her fully awake and with us, except to wait for her to subvert her subconscious. It’s not easy being awake while being unable to do anything with your own body, and she’s aware of it. In some cases, patients create other versions of reality to cope with the circumstance, try to forget the physical reality. She could be doing that in her own mind. I’m looking at a lot of activity in her head that express physical exertion. It’s sort of like being trapped in a dream,”

Jack was processing all of the doctor’s words, standing there, in shock, and finally at the end of the specialist’s sentence, he slammed his hand against the marble table, “Fuck! Just Fuck!”  
He shagged his head in frustration, almost ripping at the locks, disheveling, stomping, “Fuck.”  
“I’m sorry, Jack,” the specialist was informed by the primary doctor on the patient’s special accommodations due to the crime.  
“Unfortunately, you two are not legally married. You don’t have any legal obligation to her, nor do you have any legal rights over her, so we have to bring in her parents and let them know of her current state.”  
Once more, Jack banged his fist, “Can I still stay with her?”  
The specialist looked at Jack, bending his arm, leaning on it, and stated, “You shared a home, you shared bills, and we have records that show you two were together, along with the appointments made for the legal certification.”  
He turned his head to the screen filled with colors of her brain chemistry, “You’re allowed to be with her, take care of her. This hospital is aware of your situation. Luckily, her mother gave up her rights over her daughter to you, verbally. She has yet to fill out those forms, but it’s something we’re considering.” He nodded in agreement.  
Jack quickly straightened himself, “Thank you...but what do I do for her? What can I do so that she wakes up, soon?”  
The specialist turned back to Jack, “Talk to her, little by little. I think when someone talks to you, it shows acknowledgement for one’s presence, so keep acknowledging her. Help her realize she’s awake by talking to her. She can hear you, after all.”

Her body was on the hospital bed, again. Both nurses placed her softly on the pillows and blankets her mother brought her.  
Jack sat next to her, on the accent chair next to the coffee table.  
Tears were streaming down his face, but he didn’t choke up when he started to talk to her.  
“Delia…”  
She reached the bottom of the velvet stairs, stopping, to listen to the echoes around the dome of the ballroom, the white curtains pushed up when the winds gushed into the room. She was listening.  
“Delia…..”  
His tears kept rolling over, the primary doctor saw his back in the hospital room and slowly shut the door. She gave a subtle, solemn glance back to the nurse.  
“I miss you, Delia,”  
The whisper rushed around 6 windows of the ballroom, and the white curtains, swirled, and lifted. Delia moved around in the center of the monogrammed marble floor, she twirled in circles, trying to follow the words.  
“Delia. I know you can hear me. You can’t see me because your eyes are closed, but…”  
She heard his sniffling along with his words. She stopped to listen, looking around the room, noticing the chandeliers. “Who are you?” she whispered under her breath.  
“We’re not legally married yet, but to me, you’re mine. Your mom is looking after us, too. She’s given up her rights over you, passing them along to me. She believes in this,”  
Her eyes opened wide. She walked to the entrance, where the enormous red doors were kept open, exposing the forest and ocean. She looked down to see the clear floor under the ocean. She stepped down the stairs, close to the deck of the mansion, looking down and around.  
“You see. I’m going to be here, with you, everyday, until you wake up.”  
She picked up her head in confusion, “But I am awake!” Shouting up.  
“I don’t know what’s going on! But I am right here! Awake!” Shouting into the air. She started to run down the swirling stairs.  
“I’m not sure what’s next. I’m not sure what’s next, aside from me being here with you, so we’ll go through this, day by day. I hope you can trust me. I hope you can be here with me, sometimes. You must be creating a very beautiful world because I know how beautiful your imagination is. I’ve seen it. In all your sketches, your exchanged thoughts, or your creative banter. I could listen to you speak for so long, and I always felt like you had something good to say.”  
The echo of his voice followed her as she went running down the stairs to the ocean, she jumped, swimming to the bottom.  
She could still hear him.  
“Delia, I’ll wait for you. Just like you did, for me. Do you remember when I was in this room?”  
She was holding her breath, looking down at the clouds and the sky.  
“Do you remember when you slept next to me, waiting for me to recover after chemotherapy?”  
A visual of Delia sleeping, holding on to his hand popped into her head. She kept looking at the sky that was beneath the ocean, holding on to her breath, listening, and remembering her sleeping body on the hospital bed, holding on to his hand. She saw the blue veins on his hand, and she remembered caressing them as she fell asleep. She was looking up at him, but she couldn’t see his face.  
She listened to him as she held her breath. Until finally, she couldn’t breathe anymore. She surfaced to the top, swimming, reaching the stairs. She was soaked, and helpless. She started to shove her dress down, smacking the weight of the water out of it.  
“I remember you! I know who you are! I just don’t know your name...or your face...Why can’t I remember your face?” she plummeted to the glass platform of the swivel staircase. Tears rolled down her face, and she let the shivers and cries take over her calm state.  
“What’s going on?”  
Wiping the tears, she couldn’t stop the tears.  
“WHERE ARE YOU?!”  
She shouted again, into the second sky, above the ocean.  
She felt his warmth as he placed his hand on her forehead, pushing her hair behind her ear, “I hope you’re imagining a serene place. You were always such a calm person. Even in distress, you’re so soft,”  
She felt the tips of his fingers follow behind her ear, and she stopped crying. She was appreciating the sensation, for what it was: comfort.  
He placed his body right next to her, holding her hand.  
She quickly looked at her palm, wide eyed. Then she started to swivel her fingers around, making out the shape of his hand in air, she could see it’s invisible form. When she caressed his vein she saw in her memory, he felt her hand clench onto his. He quickly pulled himself up on the bed, staring at her, at his hand gripped by hers.  
“Delia…” his eyes fell heavy from the reassurance. She could hear him, and he knew she could hear him.  
“Delia..” he whispered, placing his free hand around her forehead, making room, by placing her wispy brown locks to the side, to place a subtle touch of his lips on her forehead.  
She saw her hair move to the side and felt the touch on her forehead.  
When she felt the subtlety, she closed her eyes, and let the sensation linger before she let her hand go.

She ran up the stairs, and she walked around the mansion, discovering every room.  
As her physical body lay next to Jack on the hospital bed, she had finally found a shower and bath. The room was enormous, with purple, sapphire jewels along every square of the crystal walls.  
She entered through the sliding gem wall. It was steamed, hot, and she was ready to bathe herself back to warmth.  
The ocean’s temperature was abnormally freezing for something being on top of a cloud, above the sun. She dropped the heavy gown, tore off the crown, and quickly slipped in. It was an entire floor, just like a bathhouse, and she found it after going through five different rooms, two next to the ballroom, and the three on the second floor. The bathhouse was divided, separate from the house, but on the side of the second floor.  
She was happy to have found something so architecturally divine and divided for her own personal hygiene and maintenance. When she felt the warmth of the hot water hit her skin, the cold steam lifted from her skin. Jack was next to her body, lying, sleeping. It was nearly 4 a.m. The specialist and primary doctor were all physicians under the company of his father’s publishing company. The partnership allowed Jack the advantage of having the most care for Delia, and he was happy to take advantage of their time whenever Delia showed any sign of improvement.  
He was fumbling the side of his body, shifting in bed, feeling her body increase in temperature. He couldn’t stop moving back and forth, so he rose, placed a palm on her wrist, feeling her body’s temp. It was warmer than before.  
Suddenly, amidst the pleasantry of her bathing, she felt his palm. The sudden touch woke her out of her daze in the steam filled shower. She gasped, opened her eyes. The sensation of his palm startled her to quickly finish.  
As she did, the body’s temperature lessened. Jack placed his palm on her forehead, again, checking her temperature, and it became lukewarm. Completely normal, again. He dismissed his concern for paranoia and swiftly went back to sleep, slowly letting go of her wrist.  
As she felt his hand slip away, she was in the realization that she was undressed, still, and she had no idea where she would find a towel or clothes to put on. She paced around the bath house. 

Walking through the steam of the bathhouse, she decidedly roamed the halls nude, letting the air crisp at her nipples, and dry her skin. She eventually found a bedroom, where she layed on the comfortable sheets, letting the sun hit her skin, feeling free, she stretched out her arms, let her skin breathe.  
When she sat up after her stretch, she saw a light gown at the chair of a simple, golden vanity. The swivels of the mirror, stretched out into curves that looked like branches and flowers.  
“Everything is so strange here, so this isn’t real?” She looked at her palm, curving her brow, estranged by the abnormally real physical touch. She let her nippleds bounce as she walked. She loved the heavy weight of her breasts, touch down and feel the sensation of the crisp air glide around her tender, pink breasts.  
As soon as she felt the fabric of the dress, she placed her arms through, caressing the edges, and smoothing out the creases. She straightened her back, curving herself, she rotated back into the chair, and she looked into the antique vanity. She traced the lines, curves of the mirror’s light acid etchings. She finished the traces, and began to look at herself in the mirror. Looking through the drawers, everything she found was available for her to decorate her face. Everything so deliciously smelling of fruits, natural odors. She reveled in the beautiful, available cosmetic pieces, and she began to design her face the way she wanted. She felt happy, looking in the mirror, and she placed the tint of her lips against the mirror. Her cheeks were rosey.  
When she released her palms from the side of the mirror, she allowed herself to explore the room and look for a closet.  
So she did.  
And to her amazement, every single garment, either silk, cotton, or wool.  
Everything at her comfort, and to her pleasure, she found garters, stockings, and lingerie that was laced with comfort.  
She could taste the sweetness of the peach nectar from her lip taint. She twirled around the closet room.  
She put on light pink stockings that had lace at the circular top of the sock, and with that she put on some gold, brown boots, quickly finishing its close at the loops of the laces. She twirled her fingers through the holes.  
She decided to be bare under her gown, feeling the tenderness slightly caress over the cotton fabric and around her body.  
She loved the wind for its natural gusts of embracing touches.  
To her leisure, she explored the mansion, looking, to see, is there anyone, there?  
She smiled. Or is it just her?  
When she found herself back in the empty dining room, she noticed the food was still fresh, with heat leaving the food, touching the air, allowing her to acknowledge that the chicken, the asparagus, everything up to potatoes, or roasted plantains were ready for consumption.  
Wary of the food, she smelled, and she noticed the tea being poured. There was a small swirly, curved kettle being lifted in the air, on its own, and being poured into a tiny, silver teacup, with the same acid etchings she saw in her vanity mirror. She picked up the tea cup, and she saw her reflection, the one of her placing her lips on the mirror. She saw herself from the other side of the mirror, and she blushed at the sight of her lips slowly pressed down on the mirror, vibrantly filling the teacups side with the trace of her lips. The teacup had a kiss mark on it, and she picked it up, and drank. The liquid was soft, soothing her throat. The effects of the tea were that similar of alcohol. She felt dizzy, and happy. The effects gave her a more conventional way of being under a dizzy spell that was natural, sober, but allowing her to explore the sensations of her mind to wander freely. She didn’t hold back, she didn't think. All she did was feel. What she felt was what she observed, acknowledged.

He was waking up.  
Jack pulled himself out of the sheets, and he yawned so horrendously that he forgot he was right next to Delia, accidentally placing his elbow at her arm. Feeling her arm, it woke him out of his exhaustion. He looked at the digital clock on the coffee table. The neon, bright numbers, struck a minute to 1:35 p.m. He slept well. Getting up, sitting up, he looked to Delia, placed his palm around her cheek, and he kissed her on the lips, whispering, “I love you, Delia.” 

The immediate sensation and verse, made Delia tumble out of her trance, quickly smiling.  
He didn’t retreat his face away. He looked around the room, waiting a minute before continuing, he said, “Delia, can I kiss you, really kiss you?”  
She heard through the hall of the dining room, and she jumped up.  
Her index finger flickered on the hospital bed.  
He slowly let his hair dangle and fall at the sides of his cheeks, as he lowered, he placed his lips on hers, swiftly slipping his tongue and caressing her lips, he tasted her peach nectar.  
inhaling , he gasped, and let the saliva, trickle down, “You taste like peaches. How is that possible?”  
Her face shifted, and he saw her mouth curve, slightly.  
“How do you do this to me, Delia? You’re so beautiful.”  
He placed his fingers under her nose, tracing the cupid’s bow of her lips. “I just always need to know you’re breathing.”  
Looking down the hallway, the curve of her smile fell flat, as she felt his fingers.  
“I wish you could hear me,” the somber feeling left the end of her tea at a bitter taste when she took the last sip.  
Solemnly looking up, she waited for another echo.  
He kissed her cheeks, caressing her hair, he lay on the bed just combing his fingers through her hair, and she felt the calloused tips of his fingers trace around and under her ear. She shut her eyes, feeling that soothing sensation trickle and tickle her body into shivers from the softness of his touches. She felt so relaxed, she let her fingers slip the teacup, and it shattered on the ground, where the pieces hit, spread, but she didn’t react to the glass shattering. Instead, she continued to stand frozen, feeling his touches.  
She whispered out loud, “please, never stop touching me,”  
Her eyes still shut.  
He laid there next to her, tracing his fingers over her forehead, down her lips, until he went under her chin.  
He saw down her gown, and felt shame, so he quickly shifted his head, getting up, abruptly.  
She broke out of the trance, opening her eyes.  
When he got up, he fixed himself, combed his hair away from his eyes, tying it back into a ponytail. He placed his hands on his jaw, amazed at how distracted he was just touching her.  
Thinking, I’m still not married to you, but I don’t need to be married to you. Why do I feel guilt? Clearly, you can hear me.  
Distressed, he buttoned his white collar shirt, put on his belt, and wrapped a silver chain around his leg and into his back pocket. It wasn’t unusual for Jack to wear chains or black cuffs. He enjoyed a goth aesthetic, especially the music. So he played a vinyl, one that his friends gifted him, playing again, Soft Kill, Cigarettes after Sex, or New Canyons. He let the music play softly, and when he let the pin hit the record, Delia, began to hear the music in the echoes of the hallway.  
She could hear the music playing around the mansion, filling the halls with the distant, yet loud and enjoyable music.  
She started to walk down the velvet stairs, standing in the middle of the ballroom. She closed her eyes, remembering the song name, “Pitch Black”  
standing over the monogrammed letters, at the center of the heart, she imagined some figure was standing in front of her, listening to the sound echo around the ballroom, she listened to follow the music. It was swirling around her, making her ears go in circles, she started to move. She twirled a little, opened her eyes, saw the etched mirrors around the ballroom, looking at the way she danced, she improved her posture, fixed her arm, curving it, flickering her torso, and swaying with the slow music. She let her body fall with relaxation. She let the gravity of the room and the music fill her heavy heart.  
True Widow hit the pin on the vinyl, and Jack started to thump his knees and boots to the sound of the drums, imagining himself on stage, playing the drums and guitar.  
He was pacing around the room, brushing his teeth.  
He was exhausted, and he wanted to start writing, let all of his thoughts simmer into the pages of his paper. He let out a grand gasp at the sink in the bathroom attached to Delia’s bedroom.  
He began to splash cold water in his face, scrubbing with the soap he brought from home. 

“Jack.”  
His father called out to him when he entered the room.  
Jack wiped his face with the hand towel, stressing the washcloth corners down his eyes, feeling more exhausted. The strain in his complexion expressed that he knew who was there.  
He slowly walked out of the bathroom, standing at the entryway, looking at his father with an accepting glance. He looked down at the checkered floor of her hospital room.  
“Hey, Dad”  
His father sighed, placing his coat down on the chair. He gave a small glance at Delia, pondering whether she could feel his presence in the room,  
“Good afternoon, Delia.”  
Jack smiled at his father’s greeting to Delia.  
Still with his eyes on the ground, “I know why you’re here, Dad. I am sorry.”  
He placed his scarf down, “You should be apologizing to my wife.”  
Jack straightened his posture facing his father and looking him directly in the eyes.  
“I will. When she comes back. I didn’t mean to disrespect your wife, Dad”  
“Your mother, Jack. Your mom,”  
His father combed his wavy, grey and black hair, slicking it past his temples, only to fall back down, “I know she hurt Delia. I know it wasn’t right for your mother to have done what she did to Delia, and she has that in her past to begrudgingly accept, and to apologize to Delia. But she came here to help you, Jack,”  
His eyes were wide, still fine, hardly a wrinkle, just freckles.  
“I have been talking to your partners and friends at the company, and I want you to know that I am also micro managing over there since your absence,”  
He sighed, turning his head towards Delia, “Although, I understand you. Your mom doesn’t love me as much as I care for her, so she wouldn’t understand that need to care for her partner like I do. Like you do,”  
He looked back to Jack, “I know what she means to you because I look at your mother the same way,”  
With a grin and a scoff, “But her prowess and independence just doesn’t let her be a little vulnerable to me the same way I am with her.”  
Jack walked forward and out of the bathroom, grabbing the copies of the latest prints his father placed on the second, centered long coffee table.  
“Keep working here. I’ll help you,” he smiled.  
When Jack looked back at his father in surprise, he answered to his reaction, “But you better be sorry to her. She’s still my wife, not just your mother, so respect her.”  
Jack placed the binded papers and went to his father, embracing him, “Thank you,”  
His eyes shut with the tightness of his embrace.  
“Alright, so I’ve got about an hour or two, so let’s start going over your next pieces, which editors to choose, and we need to set up dates for your friends to come here too, for meetings with you. I brought a planner,” his father pulled out the planner from behind his back, waving it.  
Uncontrollably, Jack quivered to a smile again. He was excited his dad was there.  
“Alright, let’s get to work.” 

“Dude, you should’ve seen the way he flew past the other car. I’m so surprised that guy is still alive,”  
“He got too lucky. Fucking Bastard. Just a broken leg. The last time I got into an accident, I got my ribs fucking shattered!”  
One thrust against the wall, the man was wearing a tight, leather coat so his studs were tapping and scraping the blank wall.  
The other man was dressed in all black, wearing a beanie, embroidered with the words, F U.  
“Alex, dude, stop fucking shoving me!”  
He retreated back, fixed his beanie, and looked back into one of the hospital rooms where their friend was sleeping.  
“Alright, alright, so what do you want to do, since damn Kev over there is comatose.”  
Zipping up his leather jacket, he responds, “Let’s go for a quick smoke. I need to get high.”  
Alex pulled on a black hoodie, gloves, and black peacoat.  
“Fine by me, but wait. Hold up! Boi! Marc!”  
Looking back, Marc waited, tapping his foot.  
Alex noticed a room where Delia was, and he just stood there, staring at her, “Look at her! Who dis?”  
He bowed his head, looking over her entire body and face. The door was wide open and Jack was nowhere to be seen.  
“Dude, she’s probably another patient that got into an accident. Like fucking Kev over here decided to drink and drive. He’s so lucky he got away with what he did.”  
Marc put a rolled up joint to his lips, watching and waiting for Alex.  
“Alex. Boiiiii. Hurry the fuck up.You check out every single good looking girl!”  
Alex looked back to Marc, eyes wide, he lifted his arm, signaled with his hand for Marc to get to his side and look at the girl.  
Marc walked over, peered into the room.  
“Woah.”  
Alex smiled back, “Right?”  
Both laughed, “Alright, let’s look at her some more, but first, let me smoke this,” he held up his joint.  
Alex rolled his eyes, smiled, and put his hand on his shoulder, shifting him to walk outside.  
Passing by as they walked, Jack swiftly gave a side glance to the two.  
Both of them idly ignoring him, and Jack watched them as he let his long, black coat follow him. He wore long, black boots that wore on to heavy steps forward. The buckles jingled, and one of the nurses immediately knew who was coming closer.  
“Hey, Jack!”  
Jack’s stern glare smoothed out with a smile, he looked up, “Oh hey! Aurora, what’s up?” he looked around, “Where’s Delia’s nurse?”  
His estranged glance at the nurse’s empty chair lingered before Aurora answered, “Oh, right. He went to go get lunch. Alf should be back soon.”  
Jack’s face settled, collapsing into a calm state.  
“I wanted to let you know. Your friends ..slash...colleagues came by. Right now, they’re in the break room, waiting for you. I let them know you went for a short smoke break,”  
Jack smiled back to her, “Thanks Aurora. Can you please let me know when Alf comes back? Delia is always a priority for me.” He peered over into the room, exhaling.  
Pulling up his hair into a ponytail, “Alright. See ya later,”  
Aurora waved.  
Coming back from their smoke, Marc pulled out a flask with a red skeleton.  
“Guess what i’ve got in here?”  
Alex took the flask, sipped it immediately, “I don’t know. Gin?”  
They were both seated across Delia’s room, outside of their friend’s room, “Nah. It’s Absinthe. I got some buddies that made this and imported it from London. It’s real hallucinating affects should kick up this high.”  
Marc smiled over to Alex.  
“You’re getting out of hand with your drug addictions,” Alex smiled wryly.  
Marc scoffed, “Because. You’re so innocent? Dude, you haven’t stopped staring at that girl in there,”  
Pointing, he took a swig.  
“Let’s go in,”  
Alex retreated, “What?!”  
Marc got up, looked around for her name on the side of the room and noticed the female nurse, he smiled, and asked, “Hey we’re friends of Delia, and we wanted to pay her a little visit”  
Aurora sat up, “That’s weird, we weren’t expecting you until later this evening.”  
She looked at her clipboard flipping the pages over.  
“Okay, well, I wrote your badges already, so here you go,”  
They both laughed, looking at each other and accepting the name tags.  
“Okay...I’ll let Jack know that you two are here,”  
She was about to walk away, but Marc put his hand on her shoulder, looking down he said, “Is it okay if it’s just us? She was a close friend and we’d like a little alone time, beforehand.”  
Aurora nodded, “Alright, I’ll go get a snack for myself really quickly and come back,” she smiled.  
Watching her walk away, Marc turned around to Alex, “I’m amazing, right?”  
“Holy shit, dude! Everything! All practically handed. Let’s go take advantage and take a full tour,” Alex jumped up skipping into Delia’s room, while Marc shut the door before he peered around, and locked it.  
“Here”  
Marc lifted the flask.  
Alex took a full gulp.  
Marc took the next gulp.  
The flask was empty, and they were both staring at her. 

In Delia’s subconscious dream world, she sat at the stairs of the ball room. She was wearing an evening gown, draped over a few stairs, and she curled her hair. She placed her tea down, as she was holding on to her book, flipping the page and watching the pictures of the book automatically flip along with the story.  
“How beautiful.”  
Before she started reading the next few words, two, white, almost mannequin like bodies stood in front of her. She felt the presence, eerily and slowly moving the book down, slowly to reveal these two things standing there, facing her.  
“Hello?” This was the first time she saw anything resembling something human, so she was a bit frightened at the sudden appearance. 

Marc bumped the vinyl record player, and the track Martian Arts by Singapore Sling began to play. 

“Pull down the sheets,” Marc pointed to the bed.  
“Riiiiiight. We shoud check out the reeeest of heer her body,” Alex slurred over his words, stumbling forward to the bed. 

One of the mannequins moved towards her, stumbling at her side. It stood faceless, without a mouth, without a nose, and without eyes. All she could see was a blank canvas, white mask facing her. She couldn’t tell without the eyes, but she felt that it was looking at her.  
Whispering to herself, “Who are you,” calmly, she shifted her book to the side, placing her tea on top.  
Before she could get up, the mannequin jumped on top of her, throwing her at the center of the ballroom where she lay under the monogrammed center.  
Her heart started beating.  
“What’s going on?!?” Hyperventilating. “Jack?!?!”  
“Dude,”  
Marc smiled, holding his flask, hovering over her, looking at Alex with his knees at her sides, “You should rip off her gown. See what’s really underneath.”  
His voice was a little raspy, and Alex smiled. 

Mouths suddenly appeared on the mannequins, and the one on top of Delia, showed its teeth, continuously smiling, it put its hands on her neck. As it began to tighten its grasp, she looked up at it.  
“Is this real?!”  
Blurting out through the chokehold. 

“Is this real?” 

Alex started ripping her clothes off. He started to bite her lips, and he continued to choke her as he forced his tongue in.  
He stripped off every lingering thread that covered her body.  
Delia attempted to turn away, but her body wouldn’t allow her.  
The ducts of her eyes started to fill.  
“This isn’t Jack,” She whispered.  
She looked at the other white figure standing there, smiling and watching. 

Marc moved forward, “Just fucking rip it all off, dude!!”  
He tore at the rest, revealing, exposing her naked body on the hospital bed. 

She watched both of the mannequin smiles start to widen. Teeth began to protrude at the curve of their bottom lips. They smiled while tearing off her clothes until she was naked on the ballroom, marble floor. 

She focused her eyes on the ceiling, fixating her view on the chandelier.  
As Alex began, she looked away, but the tears began to blur her sight.  
“Here” Marc handed him his flask, “To open her up. She’s too small for you,” they both laughed, and Alex followed through. He inserted the flask’s tip into Delia’s vagina.  
“You’re such a pussy.” They both looked at each other, laughed hysterically, and Marc placed his hand over Alex’s, “LIKE THIS, YOU CUNT!” and he rammed the flask’s silver outline inside of Delia until she bled.  
She felt the first, second, third thrust, until Alex thrusted himself.  
She felt her body move along to his thrusts, and her tears started to trickle down her cheeks.  
“Jack,” she let out a gasp. 

“Woah,”  
Alex jolted up while remaining inside of her, he turned to Marc, “Dude, she’s got a tear. Do you think she’s awake?”  
Marc nodded. His vision was blurred, and he was already hallucinating. He laughed hysterically, “Just finish already, man! I need my turn too”  
Alex continued thrusting. 

Delia felt more thrusts, and listened to the dings of the track as she tried to concentrate on the light of the chandelier.  
“JACKKK!!!!!” She screamed.  
“JACK!” She screamed  
“JACKKKKK!!!!” She screamed. 

“WHERE ARE YOU JACK?!!?” Almost out of breath, saliva dripped at the corners of her mouth, and the other mannequin slammed his mouth against hers. 

“My turn,” Marc smacked his lips. 

...

Jack was working alongside four of his friends from the company, when suddenly Aurora peered into the warm room, “Hya everyone. I just wanted to let you know, Jack, that Delia’s friends just came by and they’re visiting her right now,”  
The smile on Jack’s face dropped, and the room became quiet when they saw his reaction.  
A shiver ran down his spine, and he almost heard Delia screaming his name.  
He quickly shifted up, stumbled and dropped his cafe chair.  
“Jack,” one of his friends turned up to him. He had the same face they saw at the wedding.  
Quickly, they got up, and followed Jack, who was already running down the hallway.  
Aurora continued to stand at the doorway, confused.. He let a heavy weight drop in his chest, feeling the syringes of sharp pain.  
“Jack?” one of his friends put his hand on his back, looking up at him.  
They were standing in front of the room, hearing her monitor beep, hearing her bed creak, and the door was shut.  
He just stood at the door, preparing himself.

...

Slamming the door open with his boot, he saw him inside of her, stopping, still smiling at the light coming from the hallway. His buttocks were exposed, and they both stood up, looking at Jack. The same guy they saw in the hallway.  
“Jack,” his friend, Danny, graved on to his arm.  
“Jack,” his eyes were wide eyed, scared, nervous. He anxiously said, “Jack, I know what this looks like. I know this is bad. I know this is really bad, but please, Jack.”  
Before Danny could continue, Jack placed his hand up, telling him,” Shut the fuck up and guard the door” he waved his hand, dismissing Danny.  
Both of the guys in the room scoffed, “What are youuuu gonna do?”  
Jack looked down at her exposed body, and they saw his face become contorted with rage.  
As he looked up at them, Marc scoffed, zipping his jeans, “Oh, was this yur girl?”  
He pointed down to her.  
Jack remained quiet, listening to the track, he placed the needle to hit the track so it played from the beginning.  
“You know, I taught her a lesson,” Marc yelped at him, buttoning his black, collared shirt.  
“I taught her what it means to be stripped of whatever makes us ‘humane’. She now knows the worst feeling and can find herself able to bounce back from anything, right?” he cocked his head, smiling.  
Jack looked down at his chair, sat on it, and took a good look at Delia’s exposed, mutilated, and bleeding body.  
He shook his head.  
Marc and Alex stood by watching him.  
Alex was walking towards the door.  
“You’re not leaving,” Jack crossed his leg, placed his elbow on his knee, bending forward.  
He saw the flask on the floor, covered in blood. He saw the sheets on her bed, covered in blood.  
He smiled, scoffed, “She was a virgin?”  
He put his palm to his forward, shaking his hair, screaming, “FUCK FUCK FUCK,” stomping his foot and screaming.  
Both Alex and Marc were at the door, trying to open it.  
“What did you do to the door?”  
Jack got up from his chair, quickly but quietly, and they both backed away into the door.  
“You taught her, what?” He snarled, cocking his head.  
“What was it that you taught her?” he squinted his eyes looking at Marc.  
They both stayed quiet, watching Jack grow more animated in his movements, becoming more awake and alive with controlled rage.  
“I think you’ve taught well, your little lesson, so now it’s my turn to teach you something,” he pointed to himself, “It’s my fucking turn,” he put his face close to Marc, as Marc looked down.  
“You reek of your absinthe.”  
Jack punched Alex in the face, knocking him out, “Okay, now that I’ve got one of you unconscious. It’s time to begin our little lesson.”  
Jack was deranged in his movements, placing two chairs in front of Delia’s bed, facing her.  
He quickly got up, dragged Alex to the armchair, letting his head hit whatever came to its face along the way.  
He tied them both up. Shoving Marc. He grabbed another flask from his desk, he started to shove the drink down his throat, “You like to drink, right?! Here! Have some more!”  
Shoving the flask down his throat, until he began to choke, until he started to vomit on the floor.  
Marc kept vomiting, but Jack graved another bottle.  
Jack put it to his mouth, shoving it, telling him, screaming, “Drink it! FUCKING DRINK IT! SWALLOW IT!” 

He shoved the bottle more, reaching to his esophagus, piercing down his flesh, making him bleed out of his mouth. Choking, Marc bled, tearing, trying to talk, trying to scream for help, shaking, twitching his hands and body, screaming in terror.  
Alex watched his friend, wide eyed, trying to scream for help, but couldn’t since Jack shoved a sock in his mouth.  
Another one of the group of friends, Dave, looked into the room,  
“What the fuck, Jack,”  
Jack straightened his back, looked at Dave, “You’re going to have to get rid of the bodies.”  
Sullen in the eyes, he let them drop back to the two on the chairs.  
Dave looked at Delia, then to Jack, “Fine.”  
Looking away, to the others at the door, and looking back, “Jack, hurry up.”  
‘Bodies?!’ Alex thought, while watching Marc bleed out, seeing his eyes go into a haze, he looked like he couldn’t fight what was happening to his body.  
“Your turn,” Jack pointed to Alex with a silver cane.  
He lifted his cane, and as he saw Alex look up at the cane, he smiled, and quickly rammed the stick down to his crotch. He started screaming, “You taught her what it means to be inhumane, and I’ll teach you what it means to suffer before you fucking die!” he continuously rammed the cane into his crotch repeatedly, cutting up his crotch into parts.


	2. 0

His group of four friends came into the room, quietly.  
Danny looked down at the bodies, then at Jack sitting down splattered with blood. Crotch blood and esophagus blood.  
Jack was slouched down with his elbow on the arm, leaving his hand at his head, sitting, watching the blood trickle down.  
“They’re dead,” Jack said to everyone in the room.  
Danny was kneeled over at Jack, trying to catch eye contact, but he noticed he was still in shock. He turned to Dave standing next to Eris, “We’re gonna have to move her to another room. Eris, call his Dad. He needs to know what’s going on. Dave, Erik, help me take Delia to another room,” Erik was standing over Delia, noticing every detail Jack did.  
He rammed his knuckles into the wall. Stopped, looked at Jack.  
Eris went up to Erik trying to calm him down, “Baby, please. We’ve gotta get through this for him.”  
“I know. I’m just upset at what these fuckers did to Delia”...he swallowed his knot in his throat, “She was a virgin.” The room fell silent, but there was a pressure in the air that infuriated them all.  
Jack blinked, and the tears were rolling down passed the blood on his face, marking the streaks of his tears.  
He swallowed his knot, cracking in his words, saying, “They started with a flask. It’s covered in her blood, it’s under the bed,” he turned away, pulling his knees to his chest, he started to breathe heavily.  
Eris came up to Jack, shagging his hair. “Don’t fucking touch me,” he smacked her hand away.  
Realizing what he’d done, he pulled back, started to fill his face with more drenched tears, “I’m sorry,”  
She nodded, “It’s alright, Jack. If it were me in your state, I wouldn’t want anyone to touch me, either. Delia didn’t deserve this.”  
Her monotone voice lingered in the air, and they began to wrap her body in another gown.  
“Put this on her,” Eris took off her sweater, putting it on Delia, wrapping her body, pulling up another set of clothes that were Jack’s on Delia.  
Danny picked her up and started walking to another room, and Jack followed him with his eyes, “Wait, Danny,” Danny slowly turned around, looking at Delia, to be careful with her body, “Yeah?” he looked up at Jack.  
Jack’s eyes widened, he teared up, “Just, don’t leave her side. Whatever happens, swear you’ll stay next to her until I get back..Just don’t leave her. Not even for the bathroom. Just don’t leave her.”  
All of them watched Jack’s reaction, wondering if he was going to cope through this...wondering..if he was going to be okay after all of this...  
Eris looked up to Danny, “Do what he says, Danny,” she lowered her pitch, exhaling deeply.  
Erik started picking up the mess, dumping it in a bag, and Danny replied, “I swear on my mother’s life,” he smiled. Jack, knowingly, acknowledging, Danny’s mom has been in the hospital for a year, on her deathbed, and he swore on her life, so he took his word.  
Retreating into an exhausted exhale, Jack felt alleviated to know she was with Danny.

...

“Drop everything you’re doing right now,” it was Jack’s dad at the door. Jack turned back to the doorway, dropping the cane that he slipped out of the mouth of Alex. After he beat his crotch to pieces, he had plunged the silver cane into his mouth, piercing it through till it peeped out of his anus.  
Slipping it out, his dad motioned his hand over his mouth, nodding at his son carrying the cane.  
“Everyone, please get out. Thank you Eris, for calling me. I’m getting the staff to come in and help me. You’ve placed enough evidence of your stupor, but now we’ve gotta set this up for the police,”  
He nodded his head towards Jack, lowering his head to the floor, arching his brows, “ Jack, we’re gonna have to use the rape kit on Delia.”  
The stern expression left Jack still as everyone walked out.  
Erik went up to his dad and said to him directly in the eyes, “They deserved to die. They were scum, so I don’t blame Jack for doing this.”  
Dave looked back to Eris, and she added, “I don’t disagree with that, either, so let’s go help out Danny. I’m sure he’s still getting her hooked up to the machines in the adjacent room.”  
She directed them all out of the room, while nodding at Jack’s dad. His dad just looked at her until she and everyone left the room, staying completely silent.  
They stood in the bright lit room, standing, looking down at the trails of blood coming from the bodies.  
“Was any of this bottled up?”  
He directed his eyes to the bodies.  
Jack turned back, looking at them.  
He noticed the silver chains dangling around their pockets, the spikes coming from the knees of their dark, denim.  
“Maybe it was, but I bet these sick fucks would’ve done it again.”  
He looked back to his dad, realizing, “Sorry. I’m just mad.”  
He sighed in return to his reply, walking into the room, slowly, stepping over the trailing blood.  
“Where are the nurses?” Jack kept his arms to his chest, tightening his grip around his arm.  
His dad, Silver, looked down at his knuckles turn white.  
“Stop that, Jack. It’s over now,” he placed his hand over to release Jack’s grip, pushing, ripping the two arms away from each other.  
“You want to know what you’ve got to focus on, now?”  
Jack looked up to him, surprised by his gesture, “I know. She needs me more now, and I’m afraid of how she’s going to feel the need to wake up after experiencing a nightmare like that,”  
His dad’s eyebrow twitched, momentarily, before Jack replied, “She can hear everything, feel everything, Dad. I talked to Dr. Barbetos, and he gave me her PET scan. She’s not completely gone.”  
Silver put his mouth to a handkerchief he had tightened in the grip of his leather gloved hand.  
Coughing at the scent, “Why is that bottle covered in blood?”  
He turned to Jack, “Did you use that on them too?” he flickered his free leather gloved hand to the bodies.  
Jack turned his head down, clenching his fist, whitening his knuckles, “They used it on her. Her first experience was with a bottle forcefully shoved inside of her body.”  
His dad turned back to the bodies, “I’m sure we can use that bottle for evidence in our favor, as well. We’re going to press charges against their families, regardless if these two fuckers are dead.”  
Just as he let Jack know, a group of women and men in white coats, white, plastic gloves, and equipment began walking in.  
One of the women walked up to Silver with a clipboard covered in plastic, “Where’s the girl?”  
His dad kept his mouth covered, motioned with his hand for her to follow him, and as he watched his dad walk out to use the rape kit on Delia, he let every single white coated person pass him by, as he stood still.  
He then picked up his gaze off the floor, dropping the weight of his boots into the next room where Delia was, where his friends were.  
Sauntering into the room, he saw them placing the stick inside of her, digging the sample into the tube, scraping for more of their dna. Another one of the women started taking photos of the marks they left on her neck, on her arms, on her chin, her lips, and her thighs.  
Alex had given her bruises, purpling up to the inner parts of her thighs, approaching up to her crotch.  
Jack sat down in front of the bed watching them examining her body as she was hooked up to her monitors and fluids.

Unable to detain from the white noise that pierced through his ears, Jack pressed his elbows down at his thighs, pressing his mouth into his palms, quietly watching, examining everywhere they had touched her.  
Dr. Barbetos came into the room, dismissing all the other technicians once they collected their final sample.  
The group of friends patted Jack and said their goodbyes.  
Silver stood next to Jack once they left. Quietly reserved, he watched Barbetos examine her, calling in for the nurses to bring in his equipment, they picked her up to take her to take another PET scan, and Jack settled into his chair, until they came back. He remained seated.  
Until.  
He heard a woman screeching down the hall. Her arms and hands flailed in horror, crying, she was petrified looking into the room where Alex and Marc were.  
One of the technicians that remained, quickly took off his lab coat and gloves, trying to calm her.  
Silver was walking back after performing another PET scan.  
He was pushing Delia back, while Aurora and Alf, quietly walked next to him, bowing their head to the floor, ignoring the woman that was screaming and crying.  
As Silver walked in, he let Aurora and Alf place Delia back in her bed.  
“That’s one of their mothers. I believe his name is Alex,” he pulled out a pocket notebook from his left inner blazer pocket.  
“The other one, Marc. His father died, and his mother killed herself a few years after his father died. Alex’s father killed himself out of depression,”  
He placed the pocket notebook back into his coat.  
“He has siblings, but I figured it should only be the mother to see this,” he smiled back to Jack.  
“She’s gonna want to know what happened to him,” Jack shifted his palms away from his mouth, tearing, but not wincing, letting the tears roll over his mouth as he let the words out.  
“What should I do?”  
His dad walked up closer to Jack, placed his palm on his back, “Press charges against her, and drain her of whatever she has left of her money. People like her shouldn’t exist anymore. She shouldn’t be raising anymore rapist, abusers, anyhow. She’s unfit as a mother,” They both watched the nurses as they carried Delia to her bed.  
Acknowledging that they were being watched, the nurses made sure to be extra cautious.  
Aurora nervously gripped around, “Alf. make sure to tuck her arm right. She’s got a pretty prominent bruise, so we don’t want to press on that too hard. Remember what Barbatoes said,”  
Jack looked to Silver, expecting to hear what the specialists had to say about the scan.  
“She’s still in a coma, Jack, but..”  
As he began the next phrase, he turned his head down, and Jack gripped his palm through strands of his hair, waiting, anticipating, for the bad news.  
“She’s not responsive anymore. She was showing activity, but she’s completely immobile and she’s gone right now. She’s completely asleep. She’s shutting herself out of the real world, right now, but from what Barbetos observed, she’s not having pleasant dreams,”  
Swallowing his saliva at his last phrase, he flicked his finger, signaling for Jack to get up, without giving his direct eye contact, as to avoid watching his distraught son.  
“Get up. You have to talk to her. Tell her exactly what happened, but also, you need to threaten her, that if she doesn’t comply, we can easily turn this against her, and just point to our team. They’re standing in front of the room. If she needs more reason, bring her to Delia. Well!”  
His dad shifted his posture, slamming his hands down, “Actually, no. You know what, bring her. She needs to see what her child has done. I’m sure the evidence on her body would suffice for an understanding, but we’ve also conjured up a contract that she has to, by all means, sign. The table is right here, in front of the check in desk, along with the contract. You’re basically giving her a tour of her giving up everything she owns, everything her family owns, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. It’s a contract like a loan shark that should follow their family, so she’ll most likely kill the rest of her children, herself, then maybe the debt should

fall on to an aunt, an uncle. Her mother is dead, so it’ll fall back on the father. He will die before he could fully pay the contract, given his age, and so her sisters will probably receive it. Along with his father and his bastard children. Either way, it’ll follow them,” after monotonously rambling off the plan, he turned to Jack, who numbly, and wide eyed, nodded.  
Jack walked towards the mother, explaining, and in every emotion, every reaction, Silver nodded, expecting all of those reactions. He watched as she looked at the team, as she horrifyingly paced forward into the room where Delia was. He saw her aging expression wrinkled, dissolved from the irritation of the tears and the terror of the result of her son’s actions.  
Jack clenched his teeth, keeping the knot at his throat at the center of his throat, maintaining the posture of a ghost, of a statue. Numbly, he couldn’t let his eyes shift or look at her, or at Delia when he lifted the sheets to show the bruises, the blood, and the marks,  
He said,  
“Those are the prints of his hands on her throat,” She looked up at Jack, wide eyed and pale.  
She stayed quiet.  
She obliged.  
Quietly, she signed the contract, clenching whatever tear she had left. She swallowed, and stiffly signed away at the contract. And when she went home.  
She quietly went into her home, opening the screen door, opening the second door, seeing the images of Delia’s damaged, fucked up body.  
She couldn’t replace the images. They kept flashing into her memory, and so when she turned the knob of her house, she continued.  
She went into her room, took out a jewelry box that had a lock, which she unlocked.  
Which she opened,  
Which she took out.  
The thing,  
The thing she aimed at the two offspring she had left.  
She grabbed it.  
Aimed it,  
With one, two shots,  
And a third.  
She aimed to herself.  
Just as Silver predicted,  
Everything became a story of her murderous ploy to escape the travesties.  
But she wouldn’t escape.  
Because her family wouldn’t escape.  
Her father would receive the letter, the pictures, the suit,  
He would know.  
He would pay.  
He would eventually die, knowing why.  
Knowing everything,  
And on to the next, to whom would receive the same letter, the same photos.  
And it would remain.  
Until there was no one left.

...

The white mannequins had disappeared. She didn’t look around to see if they were present. She just knew they were gone, now that they had finished.  
She just looked up at the dented, inner top marble dome of the ballroom. She kept her eyes fixated, letting her tears fall to the sides of her temples, and she couldn’t blink.  
She knew, when she blinked, more tears would secrete out of her already burning, dry eyes.  
She clenched her teeth, keeping her mouth shut, and she shivered into a plain state, bringing her knees up. She just looked up.  
While, the sun that was outside disappeared, and the air of the room turned into a frost.  
The clouds had surfaced, the sky below and above dimmed.  
No wind. No storm.  
Just a cold air seeping in and around.  
She placed herself over the clothes that were ripped off of her. She clenched onto the cloth bringing it close to her, she let her fingers grimace over the texture, hoping for its pieces to bring a certain type of warmth, but it didn’t.  
She felt the cloth grow as cold to the touch as the air was.  
She shivered, holding the clothes.  
And she felt the presence of another in the room.  
She turned over to the direction of the center stairs.  
Noticing there.  
She saw a man sitting. He was dressed in all black, wore long, buckled boots, and wore leather gloves.  
His hair black, straight, and his eyes sapphire.  
He was staring at her, waiting.  
She just stared at him, acknowledging his presence, and when she did, he stood up, holding clothes.  
He walked slowly forward, keeping his eyes on her, he threw the clothes when he got to her.  
“I brought them for you,” he snarled at her. “Put them on. You’ll need to shower, but it’s cold, so I figured you’d need these.”  
She knew where she was, but she didn’t know who or what he was. She just looked at the clothes, and before she could start to put them on, he grabbed them. He lifted the dress over her body, slipping it on her. She stood there, watching his movements and how he shifted around her sides, pulling her arms into the holes of the sleeves.  
“I’m going to be sitting in the diner, getting high off of the tea.”  
He smiled, staring at her, as he buttoned the dress from the front.  
“Go shower. When you finish,” he buttoned the top one, hitting her collar bone, “Come down, and join me at the table. I’m sure we can find something to do, while we’re here,”  
The shadows around his eyes, brought on the stern, sophisticated expression that meant to her, she would be joining him.  
She nodded and walked off to the bathhouse.

...

“She’s stuck inside her head. She’s never going to wake up.”  
He sighed, drifting his head forward to his palms.  
“You need some sunlight in here!” Silver opened the blinds, shifted the curtains.  
“Dad. She’s not moving like before..when I spoke to her, her body responded. It’s not responding anymore,” Jack pulled up his posture, shifting forward to her bed, he began to pick her up.  
“I need to clean her, now. Get out,” Jack pointed to the door.  
Smiling, Silver nodded, “Thanks Dad!,” a sarcastic, bitter response.  
“Sorry, Dad. I am grateful for everything you did, for us,” he pulled Delia further into an embrace, curling her hair up behind his shoulder. Her shut eyes were like rotating marbles. She was in a dreaming state, and Jack could see it.  
“What is going on in there?”  
He looked at her face. Silver noticed his son’s tender thoughts surfacing over his brows, how he would look over her, concerned. “It’s as if i’m not even here..” he whispered to himself.  
“Sorry. What was that, Dad?”Jack pulled his hand to his ear, motioning his deafened ear.  
Silver smiled, motioning his hand, dismissing, nodding. He walked out of the room to talk to Arf and Aurora. He fired both of them. Silver decided to hire two of his own personal caretakers to look after Delia at any time that Jack left the room.

...

Jack got off the couch next to Delia’s bed. They had just finished inspecting and collecting samples of her deteriorated body. “I want to know where you’ll be placing their carcusses,” Jack held his phone away from his lips, gasping for the will to speak without a shiver.  
After the muffled voice on the phone stopped talking, he shut off his phone, placed it on the coffee table. He stood up, pushing his hands down on his knees, looking down at the new, marbled floor of the room.  
It wasn’t as dark, but he requested more blinds, more furniture, and more warmth in the room from his dad.  
His friends left him a new vinyl player, along with new vinyl records. To his leisure, he picked up Agent Side Grinder, pinned the needle, and let the song, “This is Us,” surface the room. “You’ve shut yourself out, Delia,”  
He turned to her, placing his fingers near her bed.  
“I know why you’ve shut you yourself out, and I don’t blame you,”  
Nearing his cold fingers, he tapped the tip of his index finger.  
Delia was in the bath house, standing still, as she turned and whirled around the room, listening to the music, but unable to hear his voice.  
She took in the lyrics, transpiring the message, and why she was able to hear it, instead of his voice...  
‘I wanna sit with you’  
The voice seeped into her ear, and she felt the frost of his finger.  
She gasped seeing the air of the frost follow.  
“I’m going to clean you, Delia,” He lifted her sheets off her body, and he looked at the bruising around her neck, around her thighs, and around her arms.  
“I’m sorry if you don’t want to be touched right now, but I have to clean you.”  
He picked up her body, shifting her torso upward, lifting the gown off her body, revealing additional marks that were planted on her belly, on her navel, and on her breasts.  
He shuddered at the visual representation of those marks, and he quickly plopped her back down, as he ran to the bathroom, where he belched out, puking, and puking, until he was completely empty.  
Jack hadn’t eaten for the two days that they took to clean her room, to inspect her body, to collect the samples, to dissect her comatose circumstance, and to re-supply this new room, along with new nurses.  
So with every fluid that came out of his body, he grew colder, he grew weaker, and faint.  
But he got up.  
He walked back to her body,  
‘Run out of hate’  
‘Run out of rage’  
‘You turn to me’  
He picked her up again, stripping away, fiercely.

“This is with love, and you should know this!”  
He ripped away at the clothes, and he picked her up in his arms, as he warmed the bath, running the water, he watched her face, hoping for a motion, hoping for an exhale or a gasp.  
He looked over her face, tracing her cheeks and her nose with his fingers, caressing, and he held onto her naked body.  
He took a moment to look over her lips. For how dry and pierced with marks, he took the time to give her a kiss.  
The water had surfaced to the brim, and he swiftly placed her down, where her legs, arms seeped into the warmth of the water.  
Where Delia stood in the bath house, she started to see the steam grow. Looking around, she was turning, hoping to see a sign, and the water began to drop, coming from the ceiling of the room, the water trickled down like mist.  
He picked up the cloth, he picked up the soap, and he picked up her limbs. For every touch, he cleansed her.  
Wiping away the smudges on her thighs. He picked up her knees, settling her foot for support, and wiped along, slowly, watching her face, hoping for a sign.  
‘I wanna ride with you in a final screen’  
‘And catch with your eyes only when it starts’  
He caressed her limbs where he saw a bruise, and he kissed those marks.  
“Heal, quickly.”  
“Just heal.”  
She started to wipe away her body, cleaning it as she felt her limbs directing her where to wipe, where to wash.  
Picking up her head, he kissed her forehead, and he placed another dollop of water, blending it with herbs. Eucalyptus and lavender mist fumed into the bath house, and she was finally done.  
Reaching her room outside the bath house, she felt warmth.  
He carried her wrapped in a towel to her bed, and he slowly folded himself over to place her down, slowly and softly.  
‘I wanna speak with you In a silent way’  
He pressed his lips on hers.

Grabbing more herbs, along with lotion, he lathered her body.  
Picking up her thighs, opening them, he placed his mouth, sucking on her.  
‘You turn to me’ ‘I’ll turn to you’  
“Just one last thing I had to do to clean you from the inside,” he kissed her inner thigh. After placing his tongue inside of her, he kissed her labia lips, continuously kissing her body.  
Delia was on her bed, gasping and moaning, feeling relief, and feeling something entirely 

new...

...

“So you are ready,”  
The same black clothed person she met in the ballroom stood at her bedroom doorway, watching her as she stopped moaning.  
“I told you to meet me in the dining area. Not take your sweet time getting off.”  
She grabbed her bed sheets to cover her open legs and bare breasts.  
“Oh so, now you’re embarrassed?” he rolled his eyes, releasing his crossed arms and started stomping towards her.  
“I don’t owe you anything,” She scornfully stated to him.  
“Of course not. You’re right about that,” he smiled, exposing his brilliantly white teeth.  
“I suppose you should just get dressed anyhow, and join me? Since we’re both here, after all. Might as well get to know one another?”  
She got off the bed, “How are you here, exactly? I don’t recognize your face,” she put the sheets back on the bed, freely walking naked into her closet.  
He followed her body with his eyes, “You,”  
He tilted his head.  
“I’m going to be blunt,”  
He curved his eyebrows, expressing concern, but at the same time, he smiled.  
“You were raped by two men outside of this. In real life, out there, where your body lies on that hospital bed.”  
“So what’s the point of you?”  
She pointed to him, as she gripped onto a dress into her chest.  
“I..” trailing off, he neared her closet, leaning at the curve of the closet entrance, “I’m the result of this incident.”  
She slipped the dress on, and held out her arm for him to grab.  
Walking with his arm looped around hers, he directed her, as he was beginning to say, “You’re traumatized, of course, but you’re also comatose.” She gripped his arm harder, tightening until he started to smack her arm away, “Fucking stop. That hurts.”  
She was startled from his reaction, wide eyed, gasping, “So you can feel?”  
He shagged his hair, pushing his black bangs to the back, exposing his arched, skinny jaw, “Well, you’ve personified an event. Of course, I will have some human traits.”  
She went back to his side, pulling him to her side, “So you’re me?”  
Shaking his head, he trailed forward to the dining table, “No, but I am part of your subconscious thought you’re tempting to not suppress. You’re fighting the suppression, but you’re not moving anymore.”  
She sat down as he held on to her hand, pushing her seat forward. He brought another chair from the other end of the long table. Placing the seat right next to her, “He already couldn’t hear me. What’s the point of worrying over subtle movements if I am already in a coma?” She snarled as she picked up the teacup off the air and let the teapot pour its contents all over the air like gravity was gone.  
“He’s losing hope in you,” he smiled, pushing his seat forward.  
She watched his face as she solemnly sipped her tea.  
The haze of dizzy spells the tea gave let her calmly asses his character, and she asked, “What do we do together, then?”  
He jolted off his chair, standing up, having his chair slide back behind him, steadying on itself by itself, the chair ricochet back towards his back, he sat back down, twirled in his chair at the tip of the leg, and he drank the remnants that came from the teapot. He waved at the teapot to move above his face, and the teapot poured its contents into his mouth.  
“You’re going to have to learn to live with me,” he garbled his words gulping down the tea.  
Finishing his gulps letting it trickle down the sides of his mouth, he smiled, dropped from his twirl, leaned forward, “Maybe..” he whispered, looking down at her chest, he picked up his fingers, grabbing on to her loose threads of her dress, opening the dress, “Maybe...even love me?” She scoffed, “What do you know about love?!” and smacked his hand away.  
“I don’t know,” he shrugged his shoulders, leaned back into his chair.  
“Maybe you have to teach me?’  
He got up, went to her side, “how about we go dance?” he held out his hand, smiling.  
She looked at him, then forwards, contemplating, wondering, and silently thinking.  
“This is your world. Your thoughts are bound to come alive, so if you lie to me,” he leaned down, holding his arm at the back of her chair, leaning into her face, exhaling deeply, and sternly said, “I will know.”  
She remained silent, holding a calm gaze of indifference, and gave into his gesture.  
She placed her hand in his, and a song began. Damon Alborn’s Sister Rust.  
“Wait. Is he playing this? Or is it me?”  
‘You were so far away....’  
‘There was nothing I could do to stop you feeling blue, anyway’  
Reaching the center of the ballroom, he rolled his eyes, stared at her, staying silent for a while before saying, “Why ask that? I think you’d know the answer to that question!”  
He gripped her hand, but pushed her away from him, beginning to twirl.  
“It’s me...”  
“It’s me...and we can hear it,”  
They stepped forwards together, and he gripped on to the side of her waist.

Dipping her down, “are you sadness?” picking her up, twirling her on his hip, he watched her dress flow with her. “I am what you want me to be.”  
He leaned his head on her forehead.  
‘Waiting for the credits to end...Now and forever...’  
She wrapped her thighs over his knee and plopped up, sliding from side to side, listening to the lyrics, she mimicked outloud to him, “It’s you and me again, waiting for the credits to end. Now.. and forever....”  
He picked her up, lifting her, spinning, and sliding. His shoes were like skates. they just smoothly moved across the marble floor as he danced with her.  
She began to stare at him as he, and they held their gaze, moving from side to side, the music began to roar, bleeding into their ears. She followed the song out loud, “With something in our hearts..  
That if we were to stop..  
Would pull us away...”  
He grabbed onto her waist, pulling her in, he smelled her hair, tightened his grip on her body, and shifted her around. She tried to alleviate the aggravation by pulling away, but he pulled onto her harder, and they bounced together as he spun.  
They whispered together into each other’s faces, with their foreheads joined,  
“There’s nothing we can do  
To stop feeling this blue Anyway”


	3. Chapter 3

“You’ve been ignoring me.”   
He pulled up from behind her, and as she turned around, he asked, “why have you been ignoring me?”   
She paused, momentraily, not understanding how to reply to this. They were together, almost always, and he wanted to know why she wasn’t replying to his every whim.   
“I haven’t been,” she smiled with a quiver, brows perplexed from such a confusing question.   
“Yes, you have,” he stomped forwards.   
They were standing in the balcony, outside where the skies stayed cold, and the color began to change from the somber pale blue to a deafening grey.   
Winds gusted around her hair, covering her face, she was still and unable to follow what he was asking.   
“You’ve been talking to him! You’ve been ignoring me to talk to him!” he pointed towards the sky, signaling from above and outside of the world.   
She moved forwards approaching him, trying to hold on to his arm, but he shoved it away, pushing her to the side, he exclaimed, “NO. Just fucking answer me!”   
She slowed her movements hoping to stay calm and influence a type of calm state, as to diffuse this alarming, hostile behavior that was coming from him.   
He moved closer, shoving her, “Answer me! You’re supposed to be paying attention to me! You’re supposed to love me!” he shouted at her, nearly crying; instead, whimpering.   
His eyes were squinted down from the heavy rush of sorrow.   
“Stop talking to him.” he stood upright, crossed his arms.   
She quickly got up, angered, “Why the hell should I?! I can talk to him however and whenever I please!”   
She shouted back into his face looking him directly in the eyes, then as she began to make her way to the glass entrance of the second floor dining area, he came after her, yanking at her hair, pulling her down to the ground, “NO. You are mine! You’re mine!”   
Her chest started to beat at the same rhythm of her breaths. She began to panic, realizing how entrapped she was. She felt it. She felt there was no other way out, and she couldn’t get up, for fear that he’d just shove her back down.   
Quickly, all she could do was think of a plan. Think of what to do next to escape, to not get hurt, and he...saw. 

“You can’t forget who I am, and where we stand in our relationship! Your loyalty is mine. You belong to me,”   
And he moved towards her, swiftly bringing down his long black coat with him, sliding his slender legs on her sides, “please, baby, just understand,” he caressed her jaw, grazing over her lips with his thumb, and tracing her jaw with his index finger.   
She was perplexed. “What do you want me to do?” she asked, quietly, with wide eyes.   
“Baby, i just asked you. I don’t want you to talk to him anymore. I’m the only one in your life, right now.”   
She started shaking her head, “I don’t know how I can stay away from him. He’s important. He’s my best friend, and he’s my connection to the real world.”  
As she said so, his face contorted. He was hearing her, and with each word, his expression grew darker, his eyebrows sharpened, his nose crinkled, and he started to purse his lips, “Then we may not work out after all,” he shoved her away as he got up to leave.   
“Fine!” she got up, turned away walking to the balcony ledge. He saw her turn away, and grew enraged, yanking her by her shirt, beginning to rip away the pieces of cloth.   
“NO. what are you doing?!” she started gasping, whimpering.   
“What are you doing?!”   
More shreds of cloth released, and her skin was beginning to expose to the blisters of the frost in the air.   
“Stop. Please stop,” she began to shove, kick, and he would grave her and yank every body part, shoving them to the cement ground, weakening her body.   
“You want to ignore me?!” he yelled at her, crossing her arms together, pinning her down, and he began to unzip himself.   
Grabbing her head, shoving his kisses, he bit her lip to open her mouth and stuck his tongue.   
he gripped her head from behind, feeling the sensation of the nape at her neck, beginning to aggressively whisper, “I’m going to remind you who I am, and you’re going to keep reliving this, until you realize how important I am supposed to be. Not him.”   
In her retreat, she loosened her grip on his cuffs, and loosened her muscles.   
She let her head fall back, and he began to kiss her exposed body, making his way up to her lips, then slipping himself inside of her,  
“It’s only a matter of time, darling,”   
He grabbed the back of her head, caressing it with his fingers, as he was thrusting, “You’re going to have to learn to love me, only.” 

...

“If I can make inanimate objects, or subjects, or personify ideas, thoughts, why are you the only one in human form?”, he spun around her, facing her forwards, a shadow, black fog released from his exhale, and the irises spread, blackening his eyes.   
“Good question, Delia,” he mocked her.   
Shifting forwards, she spun back to look at him, and he flipped from under, “This is your world, Delia!”   
He began to spread his arm span, lifting his hands, and invisibly conducting, “If you want people, people shall appear!”   
Just as he bowed down at his last conduction, glasses, tables, or cups became human.   
One object popping into its design as a person.  
The chandelier at the coffee table near one of the columns of the ballroom turned into a crystal, clear human outline as a woman, but not wearing any skin.   
Just as he said so, Jack began a track on his vinyl, playing, Undone by Cold Showers, and she looked up to the ceiling, where the ballroom’s roof opened, exposing the velvet, blue sky,   
The sky began to darken, and thunder rolled in, flashing thunder echoed around the ballroom, and he started to dance along to the song,   
“Don’t you hear it? He’s losing hope,” he smiled, exposing the bright, white teeth lighting his entire face.   
She watched him twist around the crowd. All of them began to waltz, jump, or dance uncontrollably, and she stood as she watched the entire sky shift from grey to black, along with the flickers of light that came from the thunder.   
“He’s upset, so what am I supposed to do?!” she screamed, and as he danced around, ignoring her shortly before running to her face, yelling, “Acknowledge me! You fucking moron. I’ve already told you!”   
Just as he moved forwards yelling, everyone turned back, and the ballroom shut. The music stopped, and she could only hear the echo of his screaming voice telling her to acknowledge him.   
“Why should I like you? You’re awful. You’re a horrible, mean person.”   
He started to laugh hysterically, holding on to his stomach, and thrusting his head back, continuously laughing, and all at once, stopped, faced her, cold faced, letting the steam fall out of his eyes, “It’s your world, Delia.” 

...

“He’s in my head! He’s in my head, Jack!”  
Delia’s body began to seizure, and Jack abruptly shifted out of his cushion couch, slamming his chair back to his desk, shoving away his dad. He pulled her into his arms.   
“Delia, wake up. Delia. It’s okay. I’m right here. I’m right here.”   
Silver stood up beside him, for a moment, before screaming for the new nurses to come in.   
“Get the fucking doctor,”   
They ran down the halls, letting the lights of the halls flicker as they ran down, calling out to the doctor.   
She ran down the hall with the antiepileptic drugs along with the autopulse resuscitation machine. They ran down, and as Delia ran into the center of the ballroom, she yelped into the dome’s crevices, she ran to the outside balcony, and she stood at the rail,   
“JACK!”   
Her body started foaming at the mouth, and Jack began to perform CPR before the doctor came in and performed her incisions.  
“She’s seizuring now, Dad,” he ran to his dad, shaking at his palms, sweating, and crying.   
“What the fuck am I supposed to do, now? Dad? She’s seizuring.”   
Silver watched Jack closely before calmly and quietly placing his palm over Jack’s head, pulling him in for an embrace.   
“She’s being taken care of. She’s going to be okay.”   
The monitors were going off.   
She was continuously seizuring, shivering, and foaming at the mouth.   
“Dad,”   
The doctor stopped performing CPR, shaken by the body’s abrupt collapse. She flatlined, and Delia fell into the water.   
Her body reached the bottom, frosting around her arms and hands, she had her eyes opened, and the gas was leaving her body. The bubbles surfaced and popped.   
“DELIA!” the dark haired person screamed over the balcony.   
“YOU CAN’T HIDE FROM ME FOREVER, YOU SLUT”  
He jumped into the water, ripped at her hair, dragged her to the grass aside the water, blew into her mouth, slamming his fists into her chest.   
“You fucking cunt. Wake up! I’m not done with you! So you better wake the fuck up, you bitch,” he yelled into her face, screeching, shivering at the screams..  
He kept slamming his fists into her chest.   
“She’s flatlining..”   
Jack whispered.   
“No...no…..no...she’s flatlining,” whispering through the knots lodged in his throat.   
Another silver slam of metal and electricity was placed over her chest, “Wake up, Delia.”   
“Wake up, Delia!”   
The doctor slammed again, and her body…   
She felt the slams from the dark haired boy. She heard his screams, and her unconscious, subconscious state of mind cried.   
She wanted to hide, but she didn’t want to hear his voice anymore.   
She reached consciousness in her world,   
And with another silver slam,   
She reached consciousness in her real world.   
Gasping, jolting up, like she was reaching the air above the water, she gasped and screamed herself upright, startling everyone in the hospital bedroom.


	4. Alienated Trauma Response

Jack immediately went in to hold Delia, but she shoved him away before he could close his arms tight around her.   
“Get off of me! Don’t touch me!”   
She pushed him.   
Jack stood still, eyebrows quivering, he exhaled, “Baby..Delia..what’s wrong? It’s me...Love.. Why won’t you let me hold you?”   
“Just, don’t fucking touch me!”   
She shoved her blankets away, jumping off the bed, she tried to uphold her posture, but immediately fell to the ground, “What..”   
She slammed her palms to the cold marble floor.   
“Delia..” Jack held out his arms, extended his hand, and said, “Please, let me help you.”   
She smacked his hand away, “NO”.   
The doctors were alarmed by her waking up, but they were more alarmed to notice Silver and Jack’s reactions to her words, so they grabbed Silver, walked him out of the room, “Silver, can you please guide us on your personal experience knowing Delia and her persona?”   
Swallowing his gasp and shutting his agape mouth, “Yeah...this is not like her. She’s actually a very quiet, shy girl. She’s extraordinarily sweet and forgiving, so..I’m just a little taken aback by her behavior right now…”   
Doctor Barbatos placed her palm over Silver’s shoulder, which immediately grappled his attention, facing her, “She was raped, Silver. She was raped while she was in a coma that allowed her to feel, that allowed her to hear the world outside of her frozen body.”   
His expression became agitated and concerned.   
“What do we do?”   
“I’m not the doctor that can help her with that. Neither is my colleague.”   
Her colleague, Vince, added, “I’m just her brain specialist, but Barbatos knows the best counselors, therapists, and recovery rehabs around this clinic and other clinics outside the state.”  
He turned to Barbatos, nodding, so she answered, “I’ll draw up the best.” 

“Don’t fucking touch me!” Delia yelled at Jack.   
“You can’t walk by yourself, Delia. You need my help! Please, baby, let me help you...”   
She started pushing and dragging her body, “Your help?!”   
Turning over, against the couch, she whispered aloud to him, “What good is your help when all you can do is get me raped? You’re a worthless husband” she laughed mockingly, “Oh! Wait. We’re not married! You’re not even my husband! Why should I fucking let you touch me?!”   
He stayed silent, hearing her words.   
Letting out a subtle, calm exhale, “Fine. I won’t fucking help you”   
“Good! You don’t know how to help, anyhow!”   
storming out, he retreated to the plate that stated her name, and he began to fall to his back against the wall, to the floor. Slumping down, he pulled his hands to his face and let the emotions flood out.   
Silver rushed to him, “She’s awake, and now, she hates me. I can’t even hold my wife because of those bastards that raped her.” He began to whimper, shaking in his Dad’s arms, letting the rough cries into his Dad’s chest. 

...

“Delia?! What the fuck are you doing?!”, Jack clenched her hand that held a razor.   
She looked up at him, and he saw her eyes watery, stretched out, and soaked up from all the tears that fell to her lids. She was puffy and rosy. The moment she looked up at him, he stood silent.  
He felt sorry for her.   
Choking on her saliva, she inhaled, exhaled, “The pain. The voice in my head that’s telling me to kill myself won’t stop,” she picked up the blade again, and began the incisions, slamming the razor’s edge on her skin.   
“It won’t fucking shut up!” she shouted, screamed, and cried.   
Jack threw himself around to the front of her, took the blade from her, and picked her up.   
“Just hold on to me, Delia. When you feel like this, come to me.”   
He picked up her head, shoved it into his chest, while caressing her hair. She started to drop her fists, and let herself drown her cries into his black t-shirt.   
The blood dripped as he came close to his sofa in his living room area.   
“I’m going to be right back,” he placed his palm on her cheek before swiftly picking up his first aid kit.   
Picking up the alcohol, he blotted the cotton ball on her open wound.   
She didn’t look at him. She didn’t react to him being there, sitting there, cleaning her wounds.   
She just left her arm loose, letting her hair cover her face as she looked out the window, feeling the drops of alcohol sting her open flesh.   
“Delia...can you at least look at me when I’m talking to you?”   
She turned to face him, “I didn’t realize...I didn’t hear you…”   
He looked back down, away from her face and towards her wounds.   
“You’re relapsing, again.”   
He whispered, again.   
“You’re not getting any better Delia...it’s been almost a year of this...of therapy, of consultations, of rehab...even the psych ward.”   
He started wrapping the gauze over her arm, tightening, fastening.   
She could hear the tear as he stretched it over and over, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Jack.”   
She turned back to the window, “Come here,” he turned her chin towards his lips. He pressed his lips onto hers, and she flinched, squeezing her eyes tight.   
She let him kiss her, but she squeezed her eyes shut, holding back the disgust….  
He pulled away, slowly opening his eyes, he said to her, “You don’t even enjoy my kisses anymore.”   
Looking at him, she felt the weight of her complacency settle over her eyes.   
“You’ll never understand this feeling Jack…”   
Streams fell down her cheeks, and her pale face looked towards him.   
“If it’s too much for you, if I’m too much, then go. Just don’t add the pressure of the guilt that I already feel. I’m fighting these thoughts..these flashbacks...especially with you, but it’s my body that is so unwilling to me.” 

....

“She’s coming back, late, again”  
Jack is pacing the open living area and kitchen area of his condo.   
“Did she say when she was coming back?” Silver replied through the speaker of his phone.   
“No. Of course not. She’s been coming back home, late, every fucking day.”   
Silver remained silent, until he heard the door open, “Sorry Dad. I have to go. I think she just got back.”   
“Alright. Goodnight.”   
Delia walked in, stumbling, walking in a jagged line, with her face towards the floor. She was trying to make out the direction in which the floor was clear for her to pace forward.   
“You’re drunk. AGAIN?!” Jack slammed his phone to the wall.   
“What the fuck, Delia?!”   
He grabbed her by the sides of her arms, “Tell me. Tell me you’re not out there doing what I think you’re doing?!”   
He started to shake her until she looked up to direct her face towards his, “Please. Please tell me my suspicions are wrong!”   
When she looked at his face,   
she saw his eyes widen, his mouth pressed firmly, clenching his teeth, and his nose flaring open and closed, “Why does it matter to you?” she started to laugh hysterically.   
Her mouth was loose and she felt the alcohol put her into a dizzy frenzy.  
“Why are you doing this to me?!” Jack shook her, trying to wake her out her drunken stupor.   
“Please, talk to me, Delia…” he started to loosen his grip, and she started to see his complacency set in as he let his head fall down towards his chest.   
He’s tired, she thought. How boring, she thought, and she began to walk away, but before she could take her second step away from him, he gripped her arm, pulled her towards their island, marble table in their kitchen.   
“Hold on to me,” he pulled her in.   
Smelling the sex off her clothes, he started to nudge his nose into her hair, hoping to smell the fruit of her shampoo.   
“I already know it, but I don’t want to acknowledge it. I love you too much, Delia.”   
She let him tightened his arms around her. She didn’t pick up a single finger, and replied, “Whatever…”   
He lifted his head, slouching still, and looked to her, “Do you love me? Do you love me...anymore?”   
She saw the gravity that’s taken over under his eyes. The skin around his lids worn, wrinkled, and she stared at him with utter disgust, “Why would I love someone like you?”   
“If you hate me so much, if you find me to be so repulsive, then why? Why are you with me? IF YOU’RE OUT THERE, FUCKING OTHER PEOPLE, Why...why be with me, anymore?”   
He resigned himself to the chair next to the island table.   
“Jack.”   
She looked at him.   
Then fell to the floor.   
The alcohol had set in and blacked her out into a state of a comatose sleep. She wanted to revert herself back into her head.   
“Does he still want you?”   
The black haired boy of her dreams arose into her subconscious thoughts, again.   
“No. Not anymore. He hates me.”   
He smiled, snarling, exposing his sharp teeth, “Why would he love a whore like you?”   
He smacked her to the side of her head, shoving her to the side, dropping her.   
“You’re right. I’ve wronged him. He doesn’t deserve this. He’s taken care of me so much...and I’m only hurting him everyday.”   
She kneeled below him, “What should I do?” looking to the ground.   
“Well, you keep pushing him away, and he still doesn’t get it. You don’t belong to him. You belong to me.”   
He picked her head up by the wispy strands of her hair.   
“Why can’t I belong to him?” She let the streams fall down her cheeks, letting her eyes remain fixated to the ground, unable to look at this black haired boy, again.   
“Why can’t I be with him in harmony, without you?” she picked up her eyes to directly address him.   
He smiled, “Because, Delia. You will always be the person who was gang raped. This past of yours will never disappear, and you know it. It’s the only reason I exist.” He slammed her face away, letting the strands and her face fall back down on the marble floor.   
As her face hit the ground, she had been shaken to rise, “Delia!”   
The splashes of shower water hit her in the face, and she turned her face to see Jack screaming and shaking for her to wake up.   
“Delia!”   
He gasped. Finally seeing her eyes open, he shoved her into his chest, wrapping his arms around her, letting the water run around them, “Thank god, you’re awake.”   
She started to whimper, “Jack. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,”   
She clenched her arms around him, tightened her grip, “I love you. I’m sorry I didn’t say it earlier. I love you. I love you.”   
He quickly released his hold to look at her, letting his palms open over her cheeks, holding her close, to look at her, and see, “You really mean it….”   
He pulled her in, kissing her, “I love you too, Delia. We’re going to be okay. We’re going to get better.”   
Continuously, they shared pursed lips, and he picked her up and out of the shower with towels wrapped around themselves. He walked with her in his arms to their bedroom.   
“I love you,” she looked up at him, pressing her lips against his neck, and jaw.   
He released his hold, and they both turned to each other in their bed. He kept his hand over her cheek, caressing her over her ear, pulling loose strands over.   
“We’re sleeping in, tonight,” he exhaled.   
“You’ve come back to me, haven’t you?” he looked at her.   
She kept her eyes fixed on him, replying with a press of lips against his. “I don’t know how to keep being like this, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving you.” 

.....

“O my goodness!!! I’m so excited and happy! Tomorrow is christmas! Are you excited?” Delia dashed into her homeroom class, giggling. She walked up to every desk, every student, and handed out gifts. She started remembering how the night before, she was contemplating what she could do for everyone in her class. Eventually, she just grabbed some of her personal items and wrapped them. When she worked her way through the classroom, handing out gifts, she tried to converse with everyone, hoping to ensue an excitement throughout her homeroom, which worked. Everyone started to talk about her gifts, about what they were doing for christmas, and what they were going to do for the day.   
“I’m just so happy that I get to share this eve with all of you, and I wanted everyone to have a little gift, to make sure they knew that they were thought of.”   
One of her classmates, Jessi, pulled up close to Delia, smiled, and said, “Delia, you’re so sweet. Thank you!”   
Jack bounced his crossed over right leg over his left. He was sitting at a coffee table across from his father, sipping on tea. They reluctantly decided to meet at a coffee shop to briefly discuss the new incoming authors, editors, and his friends as colleagues.   
“She used to always be like this. In every situation at her school, at home, or at an event, she always tried to make the most of it,” Jack exhaled.   
“I remember when she came up to me, tried to greet me with a smile, and I was reluctant. Her smile was so fucking big, and her cheeks were so rosy. It made me so angry, but at the same time, I gave in to her. When she opened her eyes after smiling, she had this look of hope. She hoped that she could make me happy... or smile, at least.”   
Jack looked down at his teacup, “I miss that smile.”   
He smiled, “She always had this hope. She tried to make every day special.”   
Silver nodded.   
“She’s still Delia,” raising the teacup to his mouth, “It’s not fair of you to see her as any different,” he tilted his head, arching his brow, “even if she is a little chaotic right now.”   
He started to tap his foot, “but that’s the hard part. You have to decide whether you can accept her for what she is right now, if you can accept her for who she is becoming, having to overcome an incident like that in the hospital..”   
Jack started to contort his face, “What the fuck does that mean?”   
Silver shook his head, and Jack replied, “I’m sorry. I’m just..a little confused with how everything has completely shifted.” He placed his palm over his forehead, leaned over, looked into the teacup, and reminisced,   
“She’s the kind of person that one day saw someone rushing to catch the train, and before the conductor could shut the doors, she would pretend to be confused, to shift in between the sliding doors, pretend to be clumsy, purposely dropping her personal items, and she took her time to pick them up. And for what? So the person that was rushing to catch the train could make it before the doors would shut.”   
He laughed, “That wasn’t even her train, so when that person made it into the train, she just stepped out, smiled, and waved goodbye.”   
Silver’s eyes widened, with a gasp, and he shifted back into his seat, “You never told me how you two met. Why are you telling me now?”  
Jack looked up to his Dad through his grin, he said, “It’s how she got me to notice her. I saw the way she did it, just to do it, just to help, and to want nothing in return. I never saw a person like that, and I waited until I finally met her, again. How beautiful a person like her could be to me because she was so happy to do something for someone else, for no reason, for no return.”   
He slumped back into his chair.   
“She’s always had this hope in her eyes, hope for a good day, hope for good things…” trailing off his sentence,   
His dad leaned in,   
“Go on..”   
Jack started to grind his teeth, “They stripped her of her clothes, physically, but the worst outcome out of all that, is that they stripped her of her hope for the world.”   
His eyes quivered, along with his mouth, “That hope in her eyes is gone. I can’t find it in her eyes anymore, and I feel like it’s my fault for not fucking being there.”  
Silver tossed in the remnant chunks of banana bread in his mouth, sipped from his teacup, and pulled in Jack’s hand, “Jack..” He inhaled, “I’ve set something up for you because I was worried this would affect you this way, and I’m glad I pre-planned this.”   
He held onto Jack’s hand, pointed down to the table, exclaiming, “I knew this would have a lingering, ongoing effect. I’ve done my own research on the effects and damages of trauma,”   
Jack nodded, “No, no. Not damages. Just effects. She’s not damaged! I’m not damaged!”   
He gripped onto his hand, despite Jack’s outburst, “You’re right. I’m sorry. You’re completely on it. These are effects. You’re going to be okay, and she will be too,” he placed his other hand over Jack’s trembling hand,   
“I want you to know that I have a specialist that can help you...help her.”   
Jack pulled himself up, faced up to his Dad, “How exactly will that help her? She can’t become codependent.”   
Silver tapped his index finger on Jack’s palm, “Precisely. You see, just like Delia helped you catch that train. She was your in disguise ‘hero’, and she made you feel special, great about yourself,”  
He placed Jack’s hands down and crossed his arms, leaning in to state,  
“You can help her without her feeling like a burden, without her feeling like you had anything to do with her recovery process. You have to be there for her, and truly, you have to understand that you are doing this without the hope for recognition of your efforts. This is why I’m hiring this specialist. She will guide you, and she will be like an on-call therapist. The goal will always be reaffirmed, and you won’t lose that motivation because this is what she specializes in.”   
Jack shook off the weight on his chest, and smiled, “Thank you.”  
Silver, released his tension in his excitement, and said, “I’m always here for you to help you. You’re mom..”   
Jack rolled his eyes, “Yes, I know. Your mom will come around, I promise,” he placed his soft, wrinkled hand over Jack’s. He subtly gave these gentle taps on Jack. He tried to affirm his words with a single, gentle affection, and Jack always noticed, growing to appreciate the warmth that came from his Dad. 

......

“I just fucking hate this.”   
Delia was stammering around the condo. She was reading through news articles. Every article, every story touched the topic of rape victims.   
“I can’t fucking take this,” she started to pick up the keyboard and slammed it across the wall.   
“Why does this have to happen?!”   
She picked herself off the chair and began to pace around the home office.   
Just as she started to swift around the sofas and the floor length window, Jack ran into the room. “Delia, what’s wrong? What’s going on, baby?”   
She stood still, frozen and fixating her eyes on Jack.   
Tears began rolling down her eyes, and Jack immediately walked up to her with open arms, ready to embrace her.   
“Don’t you fucking dare!” she pointed at his arms.   
“Delia, please. Let me hold you. You’re upset.”   
She placed her palm over the white mac mouse, swiveling the arrow to each X. After closing all her tabs, she picked up her papers, news articles, and journals.   
“Don’t come near me. You know what it does to me.”   
He rolled his eyes, but he solemnly understood. He slouched his back as she passed him, and as he sat on the arm chair to fix the desktop, he whispered to himself,  
“I understand. You can’t depend on me.”   
He pulled out his cell out of his pocket, dialed his Dad,   
“Hey.”   
“Hey, Jack. How are you?”   
Jack let out a gasp, and he muttered, “I’ll see the specialist. Is she insured through the company?”   
Silver poised a silent smile and replied, “I’ll send you the information you need.”   
After hanging up the phone, he placed the cell on the desk.   
“Hey!”   
He shouted from the office, and she shouted back, “What?!”   
He quickly shifted out of the room, went to her room, and asked, “Can we shower together?”   
She was shuffling her papers around in her bedroom, and as soon as he proposed the question, she stopped, and glared, “What the fuck?”   
Rolled her eyes and went back to shuffling through her papers, looking for a particular article.   
He shrugged, staring at the corner of the entryway, “I know, right? Crazy idea!” he laughed, mockingly.   
“Is it a problem that I say no?” she lowered her voice.   
He nodded, softly smiled, and responded, “ Of course not. I’m just bitter..”   
She smacked the papers around, and asked, “Why would you be so bitter?”   
Before he stepped out of the doorway, he turned to her, stating, “because I miss you…”   
Swiftly after he started to walk down the hall, he heard her freeze and stop shuffling papers. Realizing the silence in her room meant she was frozen, he took the opportunity to quickly dart into her room and gave her a quick kiss on her cheek.   
She still had papers in her hand, but when he did kiss her, she grabbed his hand before he could walk away.   
Her sudden reach and grip stunned him.   
She didn’t look at him or say anything. He just knew.   
He stood there, holding on to his breath. His eyes were wide open for a frozen minute. Quickly, he grabbed his hand back and placed his palms over her cheeks. She reciprocated every advance of affectionate kisses, and they both were in her bedroom whispering and exchanging kisses, “What’s gotten into you? You’ve never reached out for me... not since the hospital.”   
She didn’t respond.   
She kissed him more.   
“Deli..a..” he released a kiss, “why are you doing this?,” he stopped to look at her.   
She sat on her bed, quiet, contemplating, “I.. don’t know..”   
He slammed his fist into the sheets, closing his eyes tight, trying to prevent himself from crying, “Don’t do it if you don’t mean it!”   
He got off the bed and walked away.


End file.
